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THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

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Cun^v-v-o-pL-< the OsQstdfasis M? /f6<c
DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

BY THE

AUTHOK OF THE « HEIE OE EEDCLYEFE."

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

3Tonbon :

M A C M ILLAN A X D CO.
1866.

LONDON:

R. CI.AV, MON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,

BREAD STREET HILL.

$13

yu

v,\

INTRODUCTION,

In sending fortli this little book, I am inclined to
add a few explanatory words as to the use I have
made of historical personages. The origin of the
whole story was probably Freytag's first series of
Pictures of German life : probably, I say, for its first
commencement was a dream, dreamt some weeks
after reading that most interesting collection of
sketches. The return of the squire with the tidings
of the deaths of the two knights was vividly depicted
in sleep ; and, though without local habitation or
name, the scene was most likely to have been a
reflection from the wild scenes so lately read of.

In fact, waking thoughts decided that such a
catastrophe could hardly have happened anywhere
but in Germany or in Scotland ; and the con-
trast between the cultivation in the free cities and
the savagery of the independent baron made the
^ former the more suitable region for the auventures.
The time could only be before the taming • and
bringing into order of the empire, when the Imperial
•ities were in their greatest splendour, the last free
nobles in course of being reduced from their lawless
liberty, and the House of Austria beginning to

VI INTRODUCTION.

acquire its preponderance over the other princely
families.

M. Freytag's books, and Hegewisch's History of
Maximilian, will, I think, be found fully to bear out
the picture I have tried to give of the state of things
in the reign of the Emperor Friedrich III., when, for
want of any other law, Faust recht, or fist right, ruled ;
i.e. an offended nobleman, having once sent a Fehde-
hrief to his adversary, was thenceforth at liberty to
revenge himself by a private war, iri which, for the
wrong inflicted, no justice was exacted.

Hegewisch remarks that the only benefit of this
custom was, that the honour of subscribing a feud
brief was so highly esteemed that it induced the
nobles to learn to write ! The League of St. George
and the Swabian League were the means of gradually
putting down this authorized condition of deadly
feud.

This was in the days of Maximilian's youth. He
is a prince who seems to have been almost as in-
ferior in his foreign to what he was in his domestic
policy as was Queen Elizabeth. He is chiefly
familiar to us as failing to keep up his authority
in Flanders after the death of Mary of Burgundy,
as lingering to fulfil his engagement with Anne of
Brittany till he lost her and her duchy, as incurring
ridicule by his ill-managed schemes in Italy, and the
vast projects that he was always forming without

INTRODUCTION. VU

either means or steadiness to carry them out, by his
perpetual impecuniosity and slippery dealing; and
in his old age he has become rather the laughing-
stock of historians.

But there is much that is melancholy in the
sight of a man endowed with genius, unbalanced by
the force of character that secures success, and
with an ardent nature whose intention overleapt
obstacles that in practice he found insuperable. At
home, Maximilian raised the Imperial power from
a mere cipher to considerable weight. We judge
him as if he had been born in the purple and suc-
ceeded to a defined power like his descendants. We
forget that the head of the Holy Eoman Empire had
been, ever since the extinction of the Swabian line, a
mere mark for ambitious princes to shoot at, with
everything expected from him, and no means to do
anything. Maximilian's own father was an avari-
cious, undignified old man, not until near his death
Archduke of even all Austria, and with anarchy pre-
vailing everywhere under his nominal rule. It was
in the time of Maximilian that the Empire became
as compact and united a body as could be hoped of
anything so unwieldy, that law was at least acknow-
ledged, faust recJit for ever abolished, and the Em-
peror became once more a real power.

The man under whom all this was effected could
have been no fool ; yet, as he said himself, he reigned

Vlll INTRODUCTION.

over a nation of kings, who each chose to rule for
himself; and the uncertainty of supplies of men or
money to be gained from them made him so often
fail necessarily in his engagements, that he acquired
a shiftiness and callousness to breaches of promise,
which became the worst flaw in his character. But
of the fascination of his manner there can be no
doubt. Even Henry VIIL's English ambassadors,
when forced to own how little they could depend on
him, and how dangerous it was to let subsidies pass
through his fingers, still show themselves under a
sort of enchantment of devotion to his person, and
this in his old age, and when his conduct was most
inexcusable and provoking.

His variety of powers was wonderful. He was
learned in many languages — in all those of his em-
pire or hereditary states, and in many besides ; and
he had an ardent love of books, both classical and
modern. He delighted in music, painting, architecture,
and many arts of a more mechanical description ;
wrote treatises on all these, and on other subjects, es-
pecially gardening and gunnery. He was the inventor
of an improved lock to the arquebus, and first divined
how to adapt the disposition of his troops to the use
of the newly-discovered fire-arms. And in all these
things his versatile head and ready hand were person-
ally employed, not by deputy; while coupled with
so much artistic taste was a violent passion for hunt-

INTRODUCTION. IX

ing, which carried him through many hairbreadth
'scapes. "It was plain," he used to say, "that God
Almighty ruled the world, or how could things go on
with a rogue like Alexander VI. at the head of the
Church, and a mere huntsman like himself at the
head of the Empire." His hon-mots are numerous, all
thoroughly characteristic, and showing that brilliancy
in conversation must have been one of his greatest
charms. It seems as if only self-control and resolu-
tion were wanting to have made him a Charles, or
an Alfred, the Great.

The romance of his marriage with the heiress of
Burgundy is one of the best known parts of his life.
He was scarcely two and-twenty when he lost her,
who perhaps would have given him the stability he
wanted ; but his tender love for her endured through
life. It is not improbable that it was this still
abiding attachment that made him slack in over-
coming difficulties in the way of other contracts, and
that he may have hoped that his engagement to
Bianca Sforza would come to nothing, like so many
others.

The most curious record of him is, however, in
two books, the materials for which he furnished, and
whose composition and illustration he superintended,
" Der Weise King," and " Theurdank," of both of
which he is well known to be the hero. The White,
or the Wise King, it is uncertain which, is a history of

X INTRODUCTION.

his education and exploits, in prose. Every alternate
page has its engraving, showing how the Young White
King obtains instruction in painting, architecture,
language, and all arts and sciences, the latter in-
cluding magic — which he learns of an old woman
with a long-tailed demon sitting, like Mother Hub-
bard's cat, on her shoulder — and astrology. In the
illustration of this study an extraordinary figure of a
cross within a circle appears in the sky, which pro-
bably has some connexion with his scheme of nativity,
for it also appears on the breast of Ehrenhold, his
constant companion in the metrical history of his
career, under the name of Theurdank.

The poetry of " Theurdank " was composed by
Maximilian's old writing-master, Melchior Pfinznig ;
but the adventures were the Kaisar's own, communi-
cated by himself, and he superintended the wood-
cuts. The name is explained to mean "craving
glory," — Glorisememor. The Germans laugh to scorn
a French translator, who rendered it " Cherruerci."
It was annotated very soon after its publication, and
each exploit explained and accounted for. It is re-
markable and touching in a man who married at
eighteen, and was a widower at twenty-two, that, in
both books, the happy union with his lady love is
placed at the end — not at the beginning of the book ;
and in u Theurdank," at least, the eternal reunion is
clearly meant.

INTRODUCTION. XI

In this curious book, Konig Eomreich, by whom
every contemporary understood poor Charles of Bur-
gundy— thus posthumously made King of Eome by
Maximilian, as the only honour in his power, betroths
his daughter Ehrenreich (rich in honour) to the Bitter
Theurdank. Soon after, by a most mild version of
Duke Charles's frightful end, Konig Eomreich is seen
on his back dying in a garden, and Ehrenreich (as
Mary really did) despatches a ring to summon her
betrothed.

But here, Theurdank returns for answer that he
means first to win honour by his exploits, and sets
out with his comrade, Ehrenhold, in search thereof.
Ehrenhold never appears of the smallest use to him
in any of the dire adventures into which he falls,
but only stands complacently by, and in effect may
represent Fame, or perhaps that literary sage whom
Don Quixote always supposed to be at hand to record
his deeds of prowess.

Kext we are presented with the German imper-
sonation of Satan as a wise old magician, only with
claws instead of feet, commissioning his three cap-
tains (Jiavptleuteni) Eiirwitz, Umfallo, and Neidel-
hard, to beset and ruin Theurdank. They are inter-
preted as the dangers of youth, middle life, and old
age — Bashness, Disaster, and Distress (or Envy).
One at a time they encounter him — not once, but
again and again ; and he has ranged under each head,

Xll INTRODUCTION.

in entire contempt of real order of time, the perils he
thinks owing to each foe. Fiirwitz most justly gets
the credit of Maximilian's perils on the steeple of
Ulin, though, unfortunately, the artist has represented
the daring climber as standing. not much above the
shoulders of Fiirwitz and Ehrenhold ; and although
the annotation tells us that his "hinder half foot"
overhung the scaffold, the danger in the print is not
appalling. Fiirwitz likewise inveigles him into put-
ting the point (schnabel) of his shoe into the wheel
of a mill for turning stone balls, where he certainly
hardly deserved to lose nothing but the leak of his
shoe. This enemy also brings him into numerous
unpleasant predicaments on precipices, where he
hangs by one hand; while the chamois stand de-
lighted on every available peak, Fiirwitz grins male-
volently, and Ehrenhold stands pointing at him over
his shoulder. Time and place are given in the notes
for all these escapes. After some twenty adventures
Fiirwitz is beaten off, and Umfallo tries his powers.
Here the misadventures do not involve so much folly
on the hero's part — though, to be sure, he ventures
into a lion's den unarmed, and has to beat off the in-
mates with a shovel. But the other adventures are
more rational. He catches a jester — of admirably
foolish expression — putting a match to a powder-
magazine ; he is wonderfully preserved in mountain
avalanches and hurricanes ; reins up his horse on the

INTRODUCTION. Xlll

verge of an abyss ; falls through ice in Holland
and shows nothing but his head above it; cures
himself of a fever by draughts of water, to the great
disgust of his physicians, andescapes a fire bursting
out of a tall stove.

Xeidelhard brings his real battles and perils. From
this last he is in danger of shipwreck, of assassination,
of poison, in single combat, or in battle ; tumults of
the people beset him ; he is imprisoned as at Ghent,
But finally Xeidelhard is beaten back ; and the hero
is presented to Ehrenreich. Ehrenhold recounts his
triumphs, and accuses the three captains. One is
hung, another beheaded, the third thrown headlong
from a tower, and a guardian angel then summons
Theurdank to his union with his Queen. Xo doubt
this reunion was the life-dream of the harassed, busy,
inconsistent man, who flashed through the turmoil
of the early sixteenth century.

The adventures of Maximilian which have been
adverted to in the story are all to be found in Theur-
dank, and in his early life he was probably the
brilliant eager person we have tried in some degree
to describe. In his latter years it is well known that
he was much struck by Luther's arguments ; and, in-
deed, he had long been conscious of need of Church
reform, though his plans took the grotesque form of
getting himself made Pope, and taking all into his
own hands.

XIV INTRODUCTION.

Perhaps it was unwise to have ever so faintly-
sketched Ebbo's career through the ensuing troubles ;
but the history of the star and of the spark in the
stubble seemed to need completion ; and the working
out of the character of the survivor was unfinished
till his course had been thought over from the dawn
of the Wittenberg teaching, which must have seemed
no novelty to an heir of the doctrine of Tauler, and
of the veritably Catholic divines of old times. The
idea is of the supposed course of a thoughtful, refined,
conscientious man, through the earlier times of the
Keformation, glad of the hope of cleansing the
Church, but hoping to cleanse, not to break away
from her — a hope that Luther himself long cherished,
and which was not entirely frustrated till the re-
assembly at Trent in the next generation. Justice
has never been done to the men who feared to loose
their hold on the Church Catholic as the one body
to which the promises were made. Their loyalty has
been treated as blindness, timidity, or superstition :
but that there were many such persons, and those
among the very highest minds of their time, no one
can have any doubt after reading such lives as
those of Friedrich the Wise of Saxony, of Erasmus,
of Vittoria Colonna, or of Cardinal Giustiniani.

April 9, 1866.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

CHAPTER I.

PAG!'.

master Gottfried's workshop 1

CHAPTER II.

THE EYRIE 36

CHAPTER III.

THE FLOTSOM AND JET80M OF THE DEBATEADLE FORD . . 63

CHAPTER IV.

SNOW-WREATHS WHEN 'TIS THAW 81

CHAPTER V.

THE YOUNG FKEIHERR 98

CHAPTER VI.

THE BLESSED FRIEDMUND's WAKE 109

XVI CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VII.

PAGE

THE SCHNEIDERLEIN's RETURN 135

CHAPTER VIII.

PASSING THE OUBLIETTE 153

CHAPTER IX.

THE EAGLETS 176

CHAPTER X.

THE EAGLE'S PREY 190

CHAPTER XI.

THE CHOICE IN LIFE , 209

CHAPTER XI I.

BACK TO THE DOVECOTE 229

CHAPTER XIII.

THE EAGLETS IN THE CITY 248

THE

DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

CHAPTER I.

MASTEE GOTTFRIED'S WOEKSHOP.

The upper lattices of a tall, narrow window were
open, and admitted the view, of first some richly-
tinted vine leaves and purpling grapes, then, in
dazzling freshness of new white stone, the lacework
fabric of a half-built minster spire, with a mason's
crane on the summit, bending as though craving for
a further supply of materials ; and beyond, peeping
through every crevice of the exquisite open fretwork,
was the intensely blue sky of early autumn.

The lower longer panes of the window were closed,
and the glass, divided into circles and quarrels, made
the scene less distinct ; but still the huge stone tower
was traceable, and, farther off, the slope of a gently-

VOL. L B

2 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE S NEST.

Tising hill, clothed with vineyards blushing into
.autumn richness. Below, the view was closed by the
gray wall of a court-yard, laden with fruit-trees in full
bearing, and inclosing paved paths that radiated from
a central fountain, and left spaces between, where a
few summer flowers still lingered, and the remains of
others showed what their past glory had been.

The interior of the room was wainscoted, the floor
paved with bright red and cream-coloured tiles, and
the tall stove in one corner decorated with the same.
'The eastern end of the apartment was adorned with
an exquisite small group carved in oak, representing
the carpenter's shop at Nazareth, with the Holy Child
instructed by Joseph in the use of tools, and the
Mother sitting with her book, " pondering these
things in her heart." All around were blocks of
wood and carvings in varying states of progress —
some scarcely shaped out, and others in perfect
completion. And the subjects were equally various.
Here was an adoring angel with folded wings, clasped
hands, and rapt face ; here a majestic head of an
•apostle or prophet ; here a lovely virgin saint, seem-
ing to play smilingly with the instrument of her
martyrdom ; here a grotesque miserere group, illus-
trating a fairy tale, or caricaturing a popular fable ;

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S XEST. 3

here a beauteous festoon of flowers and fruit, emu-
lating nature in all save colour ; and on the work-
table itself, growing under the master's hand, was
a long wreath, entirely composed of leaves and seed-
vessels in their quaint and beauteous forms — the
heart-shaped shepherd's purse, the mask-like skull-
cap, and the crowned urn of the henbane. The
starred cap of the poppy was actually being shaped
under the tool, copied from a green capsule, sur-
mounted with purple velvety rays, which, together
with its rough and wavy leaf, was held in the hand
of a young maiden who knelt by the table, watching
the work with eager interest.

She was not a beautiful girl — not one of those
whose "bright eyes rain influence, and judge the
prize." She was too small, too slight, too retiring for
such a position. If there was something lily-like in
her drooping grace, it was not the queen-lily of the
garden that she resembled, but the retiring lily of the
valley — so purely, transparently white was her skin,
scarcely tinted by a roseate blush on the cheek, so
tender and modest the whole effect of her slender
figure, and the soft, downcast, pensive brown eyes,
utterly dissimilar in hue from those of all her friends
and kindred, except perhaps the bright, quick ones of
b2

4 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

her uncle, the master-carver. Otherwise, his portly
form, open visage, and good-natured stateliness, as
well as his furred cap and gold chain, were
thoroughly those of the German burgomaster of the
fifteenth century ; but those glittering black eyes had
not ceased to betray their French, or rather Walloon,
origin, though for several generations back the family
had been settled at Ulm. Perhaps, too, it was Wal-
loon quickness and readiness of wit that had made
them, so soon as they became affiliated, so prominent
in all the councils of the good free city, and so noted
for excellence in art and learning. Indeed the pre-
sent head of the family, Master Gottfried Sorel, was
so much esteemed for Iris learning that he had once
had serious thoughts of terming himself Magister
Gothofredus Oxalicus, and might have carried it out
but for the very decided objections of his wife, Dame
Johanna, and his little niece, Christina, to being
dubbed by any such surname.

Master Gottfried had had a scapegrace younger
brother named Hugh, who had scorned both books
and tools, had been the plague of the workshop, and,
instead of coming back from his wandering-year of
improvement, had joined a band of roving Lanz-
knechts. No more had been heard of him for a

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLES XEST. D

dozen or fifteen years, when lie suddenly arrived at
the paternal mansion at Ulm, half-dead with inter-
mittent fever, and with a young, broken-hearted, and
nearly expiring wife, his spoil in his Italian cam-
paigns. His rude affection had utterly failed to
console her for her desolated home and slaughtered
kindred, and it had so soon turned to brutality that,
when brought to comparative peace and rest in his
brother's home, there was nothing left for the poor
Italian but to lie down and die, commending her babe
in broken German to Hausfrau Johanna, and blessing
Master Gottfried for his flowing Latin assurances
that the child should be to them even as the little
maiden who was lying in the God's acre upon the
hill-side.

And verily the little Christina had been a precious
gift to the bereaved couple. Her father had no sooner
recovered than he returned to his roving life, and,
except for a report that he had been seen among the
retainers of one of the robber barons of the Swabian
Alps, nothing had been heard of him ; and Master
Gottfried only hoped to be spared the actual pain
and scandal of knowing when his eyes were blinded
and his head swept off at a blow, or when he was
tumbled headlong into a moat, suspended from a

6 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S XEST.

tree, or broken on the wheel : a choice of fates that
was sure sooner or later to befall him. Meantime,
both the bnrgomeister and burgomeisterinn did their
utmost to forget that the gentle little girl was not
their own ; they set all their hopes and joys on her,
and, making her supply the place at once of son and
daughter, they bred her up in all the refinements and
accomplishments in which the free citizens of Ger-
many took the lead in the middle and latter part of
the fifteenth century. To aid her aunt in all house-
wifely arts, to prepare dainty food and varied liquors,
and to spin, weave, and broider, was only a part of
Christina's training ; her uncle likewise set great
store by her sweet Italian voice, and caused her to be
carefully taught to sing and play on the lute, and he
likewise delighted in hearing her read aloud to him
from the hereditary store of MSS. and from the dark
volumes that began to proceed from the press. Xay,
Master Gottfried had made experiments in printing
and wood-engraving on his own account, and had
found no head so intelligent, no hand so desirous to
aid him, as his little Christina's, who, in all that
needed taste and skill rather than strength, was
worth all his prentices and journeymen together.
Some fine bold wood cuts had been produced by their

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE S NEST. J

joint efforts ; but these less important occupations *
had of late been set aside by the engrossing interest
of the interior fittings of the great "Dome Kirk,"
which for nearly a century had been rising by the
united exertions of the burghers, without any assist-
ance from without. The foundation had been laid in
1377 ; and at length, in the year of grace 1472, the
crown of the apse had been closed in, and matters
were so forward that Master Gottfried's stall work
was already in requisition for the choir.

"Three cubits more," he reckoned. "Child, hast
thou found me fruits enough for the completing of
this border % "

" 0 yes, mine uncle. I have the wild rosehij , and
the flat shield of the moonwort, and a pea-pod, and
more whose names I know not. But should they all
be seed and fruit ? "

" Yea, truly, my Stina, for this wreath shall speak
of the goodly fruits of a completed life."

" Even as that which you carved in spring told of
the blossom and fair promise of youth," returned the
maiden. "Methinks the one is the most beautiful^
as it ought to be ; " then, after a little pause, and
some reckoning, " I have scarce seed-pods enough in
store, uncle ; might we not seek some rarer shapes

8 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLES NEST.

in the herb-garden of Master Gerhard, the physician?
He, too, might tell me the names of some of these."

" True, child ; or we might ride into the country
beyond the walls, and seek them. "What, little one,
wouldst thou not ? "

" So we go not far," faltered Christina, colouring.

" Ha, thou hast not forgotten the fright thy com-
panions had from the Schlangenwald reitern when
gathering Maydew ? Fear not, little coward ; if we
go beyond the suburbs we will take Hans and Peter
with their halberts. But I believe thy silly little
heart can scarce be free for enjoyment if it can fancy
a Eeiter within a dozen leagues of thee."

" At your side I would not fear. That is, I would
not vex thee by my folly, and I might forget it,"
replied Christina, looking down.

" My gentle child ! " the old man said approvingly.
" Moreover, if our good Kaiser has his way, we shall
soon be free of the reitern of Schlangenwald, and
Adlerstein, and all the rest of the mouse-trap barons.
He is hoping to form a league of us free imperial
cities with all the more reasonable and honest nobles,
to preserve the peace of the country. Even now a
letter from him was read in the Town Hall to that
effect ; and, when all are united against them, my

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLES NEST. U

lords-mousers must needs become pledged to the
league, or go down before it."

" Ah ! that will be well," cried Christina. " Then
will our wagons be no longer set upon at the Debate-
able Ford by Schlangenwald or Acllerstein ; and our
wares will come safely, and there will be wealth
enough to raise our spire ! 0 uncle, what a day of
joy will that be when Our Lady's great statue will
be set on the summit ! "

" A day that I shall scarce see, and it will be well
if thou dost," returned her uncle, " unless the hearts
of the burghers of Ulm return to the liberality of
their fathers, who devised that spire ! But what
trampling do I hear?"

There was indeed a sudden confusion in the house,
and, before the uncle and niece could rise, the door
was opened by a prosperous apple-faced dame, ex-
claiming in a hasty whisper, " Housefather, 0 House-
father, there are a troop of reitern at the door, dis-
mounting already;" and, as the master came forward,
brushing from his furred vest the shavings and dust
of his work, she added in a more furtive, startled
accent, " and, if I mistake not, one is thy brother ! "

" He is welcome," replied Master Gottfried, in his
cheery fearless voice ; " he brought us a choice gift

10 THE DO YE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

last time lie came ; and it may be he is ready to seek
peace among us after his wanderings. Come hither,
Christina, my little one ; it is well to be abashed,
but thou art not a child who need fear to meet a
father."

Christina's extreme timidity, however, made her
pale and crimson by turns, perhaps by the infection
of anxiety from her aunt, who could not conceal
a certain dissatisfaction and alarm, as the maiden,
led on either side by her adopted parents, thus
advanced from the little studio into a hand-
somely-carved wooden gallery, projecting into a
great wainscoted room, with a broad carved stair
leading down into it. Down this stair the three
proceeded, and reached the stone hall that lay
beyond it, just as there entered from the trellised
porch, that covered the steps into the street, a
thin wiry man, in a worn and greasy buff suit,
guarded on the breast and arms with rusty steel,
and a battered helmet with the vizor up, disclosing
a weather-beaten bronzed face, with somewhat wild
dark eyes, and a huge grizzled moustache forming
a straight line over his lips. Altogether he was a
complete model of the lawless Eeiter or Lanzknecht,
the terror of Swabia, and the bugbear of Christina's

11

imagination. The poor child's heart died within her
as she perceived the mutual recognition between her
uncle and the new comer ; and, while Master Gott-
fried held out his hands with a cordial greeting of
" Welcome home, brother Hugh," she trembled from
head to foot, as she sank on her knees, and murmured,
" Your blessing, honoured father."

" Ha ? "What, this is my girl ? What says she ?
My blessing, eh? There then, thou hast it, child,
such as I have to give, though they'll tell thee at
Adlerstein that I am more wont to give the other
sort of blessing ! Now, give me a kiss, girl, and let
me see thee ! How now ! " as he folded her in his
rough arms, " thou art a mere feather, as slight as our
sick Jungfrau herself." And then, regarding her, as
she stood drooping, " Thou art not half the woman
thy mother was — she was stately and straight as a
column, and tall withal."

" True ! " replied Hausfrau Johanna, in a marked
tone ; " but both she and her poor babe had been so
harassed and wasted with long journeys and hard-
ships, that with all our care of our Christina, she has
never been strong or well-grown. The marvel is that
she lived at all."

" Our Christina is not beautiful, we know," added

12 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S XEST.

her uncle, reassuringly taking her hand ; " but she is
a good and meek maiden."

" Well, well," returned the Lanzknecht, " she will
answer the purpose well enough, or better than if she
were fair enough to set all our fellows together by
the ears for her. Camilla, I say — no, what's her
name, Christina? — put up thy gear and be ready to
start with me to-morrow mormng for Adlerstein."

" For Adlerstein ? " re-echoed the housemother, in
a tone of horrified dismay ; and Christina would have
dropped on the floor but for her uncle's sustaining
hand, and the cheering glance with which he met
her imploring look.

" Let us come up to the gallery, and understand
what you desire, brother," said Master Gottfried,
gravely. " Fill the cup of greeting, Hans. Your
followers shall be entertained in the hall," he added.

" Ay, ay," quoth Hugh, " I will show you reason
over a goblet of the old Eosenburg. Is it all gone
yet, brother Goetz ? No ? I reckon there would not
be the scouring of a glass left of it in a week if it
were at Adlerstein."

So saying, the trooper crossed the lower room,
which contained a huge tiled baking oven, various
brilliantly-burnished cooking utensils, and a great

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 13

carved cupboard like a wooden bedstead, and, pass-
ing the door of the bathroom, clanked up the oaken
stairs to the gallery, the reception-room of the house.
It had tapestry hangings to the wall, and cushions
both to the carved chairs and deep windows, which
looked out into the street, the whole storey projecting
into close proximity with the corresponding apart-
ment of the Syndic Moritz, the goldsmith on the
opposite side. An oaken table stood in the centre,
and the gallery was adorned with a dresser, display-
ing not only bright pewter, but goblets and drinking
cups of beautifully-shaped and coloured glass, and
saltcellars, tankards, &c. of gold and silver.

"Just as it was in the old man's time," said the
soldier, throwing himself into the housefather's chair.
"A handful of Lanzknechts would make short work
witli your pots and pans, good sister Johanna."

" Heaven forbid ! " said poor Johanna under her
breath.

"Much good they do yon, up in a row there,
making you a slave to furbishing them. There's
more sense in a chair like this — that does rest a
man's bones. Here, Camilla, girl, unlace my helmet !
What, know'st not how? AYhat is a woman made
for but to let a soldier free of his trappings ? Thou

14 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

hast clone it ! There ! Now my boots," stretching out
his legs.

"Hans shall draw off your boots, fair brother,"
began the dame ; but poor Christina, the more anxious
to propitiate him in little things, because of the
horror and dread with which his main purpose in-
spired her, was already on her knees, pulling with
her small quivering hands at the long steel-guarded
boot— a task to which she would have been utterly
inadequate, but for some lazy assistance from her
father's other foot. She further brought a pair of
her uncle's furred slippers, while Eeiter Hugh pro-
ceeded to dangle one of the boots in the air, expa-
tiating on its frail condition, and expressing his
intention of getting a new pair from Master Matthias,
the sutor, ere he should leave. Ulm on the morrow.
Then, again, came the dreaded subject ; his daughter
must go with him.

" What would you with Christina, brother ? "
gravely asked Master Gottfried, seating himself on
the opposite side of the stove, while out of sight the
frightened girl herself knelt on the floor, her head on
her aunt's knees, trying to derive comfort from Dame
Johanna's clasping hands, and vehement murmurs
that they would not let their child be taken from

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE \s XEST. 15

them. Alas ! these assurances were little in accord-
ance with Hugh's rough reply, " And what is it to
you what I do with mine own ? "

" Only this, that, having bred her up as my child
and intended heiress, I might have some voice."

" Oh ! in choosing her mate ! Some mincing artificer,
I trow, fiddling away with wood and wire to make
gauds for the fair-day ! Hast got him here ? If I
like him, and she likes him, I'll bring her back when
her work is done."

" There is no such person as yet in the case," said
Gottfried. " Christina is not yet seventeen, and I
would take my time to find an honest, pious burgher,
who will value this precious jewel of mine."

" And let her polish his flagons to the end of her
days," laughed Hugh grimly, but manifestly some-
what influenced by the notion of his brother's wealth.
" What, hast no child of thine own ? " he added.

" None, save in Paradise," answered Gottfried,
crossing himself. "And thus, if Christina should
remain with me, and be such as I would have her,
then, brother, my wealth, after myself and my good
housewife, shall be hers, with due provision for thee,
if thou shouldst weary of thy wild life. Otherwise,"
he added, looking down, and speaking in an under

16 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

tone, " my poor savings should go to the completing
of the Dome Kirk."

" And who told thee, Goetz, that I would do ought
with the girl that should hinder her from being the
very same fat, sourkrout-cooking, pewter-scrubbing
housewife of thy mind's eye ? "

"I have heard nothing of thy designs as yet,
brother Hugh, save that thou wouldst take her to
Adlerstein, which men greatly belie if it be not a
nest of robbers."

" Aha ! thou hast heard of Adlerstein ! We have
made the backs of your jolly merchants tingle as
well as they could through their well-lined doublets !
Ulm knows of Adlerstein, and the Debateable
Ford!"

" It knows little to its credit," said Gottfried,
gravely ; " and it knows also that the Emperor is
about to make a combination against all the Swabian
robber-holds, and that such as join not in it will fare
the worse."

" Let Kaiser Fritz catch his bear ere he sells its
hide ! He has never tried to mount the Eagle's
Ladder ! Why, man, Adlerstein might be held
against five hundred men by sister Johanna with
her rock and spindle ! 'Tis a free barony, Master

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 17

Gottfried, I tell thee — lias never sworn allegiance to
Kaiser or Duke of Swabia either ! Freiherr Eber-
hard is as much a king on his own rock as Kaiser
Fritz ever was of the Bomans, and more too, for I
never could find out that they thought much of
our king at Piome ; and, as to gainsaying our old
Freiherr, one might as well leap over the abyss at
once."

" Yes, those old free barons are pitiless tyrants,"
said Gottfried, " and I scarce think I can understand
thee aright when I hear thee say thou wouldst cany
thy daughter to such an abode."
" " It is the Freiherr's command," returned Hugh.
" Look you, they have had wondrous ill-luck with
their children ; the Freiherrinn Kunigunde has had
a dozen at least, and only two are alive, my young
Freiherr and my young Lady Ermentrude ; and no
wonder, you would say, if you could see the gracious
Freiherrinn, for surely Dame Holda made a blunder
when she fished her out of the fountain woman
instead of man. She is Adlerstein herself by birth,
married her cousin, and is prouder and more dour
than our old Freiherr himself— fitter far to handle
shield than swaddled babe. And now our Jungfrau
has fallen into a pining waste, that 'tis a pity to see

c

18 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE' S NEST.

how her cheeks have fallen away, and how she mopes
and fades. Now, the old Freiherr and her brother,
they both dote on her, and would do anything for her.
They thought she was bewitched, so we took old
Mother Ilsebill and tried her with the ordeal of
water ; but, look you, she sank as innocent as a
puppy dog, and Ursel was at fault to fix on any one
else. Then one day, when I looked into the chamber,
I saw the poor maiden sitting, with her head hang-
ing down, as if 'twas too heavy for her, on a high-
backed chair, no rest for her feet, and the wind
blowing keen all round her, and nothing to taste
but scorched beef, or black bread and sour wine,
and her mother rating her for foolish fancies that
gave trouble. And, when my young Freiherr was
bemoaning himself that we could not hear of a Jew
physician passing our way to catch and bring up
to cure her, I said to him at last that no doctor
could do for her what gentle tendance and nursing
would, for what the poor maiden needed was to be
cosseted and laid down softly, and fed with broths
and possets, and all that women know how to do
with one another. A proper scowl and hard words
I got from my gracious lady, for wanting to put
burgher softness into an Adlerstein ; but my old

THE DOVE IX THE EAC4LE'S XEST. 19

lord and his son opened on the scent at once.
'Thou hast a daughter?' quoth the Freiherr. 'So
please your gracious lordship/ quoth I ; ' that is, if
she still lives, for I left her a puny infant.' ' Well,5
said my lord, ' if thou wilt bring her here, and her
care restores my daughter to health and strength,.
then will I make thee my body squire, with a right
to a fourth part of all the spoil, and feed for two
horses in my stable.' And young Freiherr Eberhard
gave his word upon it."

Gottfried suggested that a sick nurse was the
person required rather than a child like Christina ;
but, as Hugh truly observed, no nurse would volun-
tarily go to Adlerstein, and it was no use to wait for
the hopes of capturing one by raid or foray. His
daughter was at his own disposal, and her services
would be repaid by personal advantages to himself
which he was not disposed to forego ; in effect these
were the only means that the baron had of requiting
any attendance upon his daughter.

The citizens of old Germany had the strongest
and most stringent ideas of parental authority, and
regarded daughters as absolute chattels of their
father ; and Master Gottfried Sorel, though he alone
had done the part of a parent to his niece, felt
c2

20 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

entirely unable to withstand the nearer claim, except
by representations ; and these fell utterly disregarded,
as in truth every counsel had hitherto done, upon
the ears of Eeiter Hugh, ever since he had emerged
from his swaddling clothes. The plentiful supper,
full cup of wine, the confections, the soft chair,
together perhaps with his brother's grave speech,
soon, however, had the effect of sending him into
a doze, whence he started to accept civilly the
proposal of being installed in the stranger's room,
where he was speedily snoring between two feather
beds.

Then there could be freedom of speech in the
gallery, where the uncle and aunt held anxious
counsel over the poor little dark-tressed head that
still lay upon good Johanna's knees. The dame was
indignant and resolute : " Take the child back with
him into a very nest of robbers ! — her own innocent
dove whom they had shielded from all evil like a
very nun in a cloister ! She should as soon think
of yielding her up to be borne off by the great Satan
himself with his horns and hoofs."

" Huoh is her father, housewife," said the master-

ies

carver.

The right of parents is with those that have done

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 21

the duty of parents/' returned Johanna. " What
said the kid in the fable to the goat that claimed
her from the sheep that bred her up ? I am ashamed
of you, housefather, for not better loving your own
niece."

"Heaven knows how I love her," said Gottfried,
as the sweet face was raised up to him with a look
acquitting him of the charge, and he bent to smooth
back the silken hair, and kiss the ivory brow ; " but
Heaven also knows that I see no means of with-
holding her from one whose claim is closer than my
own — none save one ; and to that even thou, house-
mother, wouldst not have me resort."

" "What is it ?" asked the dame, sharply, yet with
some fear.

" To denounce him to the burgomasters as one of
the Adlerstein retainers who robbed Phillipp der
Schmidt, and have him fast laid by the heels."

Christina shuddered, and Dame Johanna herself
recoiled ; but presently exclaimed, " Nay, you could
not do that, good man, but wherefore not threaten
him therewith ? Stand at his bedside in early dawn,
and tell him that, if he be not off ere daylight
with both his cut-throats, the halberdiers will be
upon him."

22 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

" Threaten what I neither could nor would per-
form, mother ? That were a shrewish resource."

" Yet would it save the child," muttered Johanna.
But, in the meantime, Christina was rising from the
floor, and stood before them with loose hair, tearful
eyes, arid wet, flushed cheeks. " It must be thus,"
she said, in a low, but not unsteady voice. I can
bear it better since I have heard of the poor young
lady, sick and with none to care for her. I will go
with my father ; it is my duty. I will do my best ;
but oh 1 uncle, so work with him that he may bring
me back again."

" This from thee, Stina !" exclaimed her aunt,
" from thee who art sick for fear of a lanzknecht !"

" The saints will be with me, and you will pray
for me," said Christina, still trembling.

" I tell thee, child, thou know'st not what these
vile dens are. Heaven forefend thou shouldst ! "
-exclaimed her aunt. " Go only to Father Balthazar,
housefather, and see if he doth not call it a sending
■of a lamb among wolves."

" Mind'st thou the carving I did for Father Bal-
thazar's own oratory ?" replied Master Gottfried.

" I talk not of carving ! I talk of our child !" said
the dame, petulantly.

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S XEST. 23

" Ut agnus inter Iwpos" softly said Gottfried, look-
ing tenderly, though sadly, at his niece, who not
only understood the quotation, but well remembered
the carving of the cross-marked lamb going forth
from its fold among the howling wolves.

" Alas ! I am not an apostle," said she.

" Xay, but, in the path of duty, 'tis the same hand
that sends thee forth," answered her uncle, u and the
same will guard thee."

" Duty, indeed I" exclaimed Johanna. " As if any
duty could lead that silly helpless child among
that herd of evil men, and women yet worse, with
a good-for-nothing father, who would sell her for
a good horse to the first dissolute Junker who fell
in his way."

" I will take care that he knows it is worth his
while to restore her safe to us. Nor do I think so
ill of Hugh as thou dost, mother. And, for the rest,
Heaven and the saints and her own discretion must
be her guard till she shall return to us."

" How can Heaven be expected to protect her
when you are flying in its face by not taking counsel
with Father Balthazar ?"

" That shalt thou do," replied Gottfried, readily,
secure that Father Balthazar would see the matter

24 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

in the same light as himself, and tranquillize the
good woman. It was not yet so late but that a
servant could be despatched with a request that
Father Balthazar, who lived not many houses off in
the same street, would favour the Burgomeisterinn
Sorel by coming to speak with her. In a few minutes
he appeared, — an aged man, with a sensible face, of
the fresh pure bloom preserved by a temperate life.
He was a secular parish-priest, and, as well as his
friend Master Gottfried, held greatly by the views
left by the famous Strasburg preacher, Master John
Tauler. After the good housemother had, in strong
terms, laid the case before him, she expected a
trenchant decision on her own side, but, to her sur-
prise and disappointment, he declared that Master
Gottfried was right, and that, unless Hugh Sorel
demanded anything absolutely sinful of his daughter,
it was needful that she should submit. He repeated,
in stronger terms, the assurance that she would be
protected in the endeavour to do right, and the
Divine promises which he quoted from the Latin
Scriptures gave some comfort to the niece, who
understood them, while they impressed the aunt,
who did not. There was always the hope that,
whether the young lady died or recovered, the con-

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 25

elusion of lier illness would be the term of Christina's
stay at Adlerstein, and with this trust Johanna must
content herself. The priest took leave, after appoint-
ing with Christina to meet her in the confessional
early in the morning before mass ; and half the
night was spent by the aunt and niece in preparing
Christina's wardrobe for her sudden journey.

Many a tear was shed over the tokens of the little
services she was wont to render, her half-done works,
and pleasant studies so suddenly broken off, and all
the time Hausfrau Johanna was running on with a
lecture on the diligent preservation of her maiden
discretion, with plentiful warnings against swagger-
ing men-at-arms, drunken lanzknechts, and, above
all, against young barons, who most assuredly could
mean no good by any burgher maiden. The good
aunt blessed the saints that her Stina was likely
only to be lovely in affectionate home eyes ; but,
for that matter, idle men, shut up in a castle, with
nothing but mischief to think of, would be dangerous
to Little Three Eyes herself, and Christina had best
never stir a yard from her lady's chair, when forced
to meet them. All this was interspersed with mo-
therly advice how to treat the sick lady, and receipts
for cordials and possets ; for Johanna began to regard

26 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

the case as a sort of second-hand one of her own.
ISTay, she even turned it over in her mind whether
she should not offer herself as the Lady Ermentrude's
sick-nurse, as being a less dangerous commodity than
her little niece: but fears for the well-being of the
master-carver, and his Wirthschaft, and still more
the notion of gossip Gertrude Grundt hearing that
she had ridden off with a wild lanzknecht, made
her at once reject the plan, without even mentioning
it to her husband or his niece.

By the time Hugh Sorel rolled out from between
his feather beds, and was about to don his greasy
buff, a handsome new suit, finished point device, and
a pair of huge boots to correspond, had been laid
by his bedside.

" Ho, ho ! Master Goetz," said he, as he stumbled
into the Stube, " I see thy game. Thou wouldst
make it worth my while to visit the father-house
atUlm?"

" It shall be worth thy while, indeed, if thou
briugest me back my white dove," was Gottfried's
answer.

"And how if I bring her back with a strapping
reiter son-in-law?" lauoiiecl Hu^h. "What wel-

o o

come should the fellow receive?"

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEOT. 27

" That would depend on what he might be," re-
plied Gottfried; and Hugh, his love of tormenting
a little allayed by satisfaction in his buff suit, and
by an eye to a heavy purse that lay by his brother's
hand on the table, added, " Little fear of that. Our
fellows would look for lustier brides than yon little
pale face. 'Tis whiter than ever this morning, — but
no tears. That is my brave girl."

"Yes, father, I am ready to do your bidding,"
replied Christina, meekly.

" That is well, child. Mark me, no tears. Thy
mother wept day and night, and, when she had wept
out her tears, she was sullen, when I would have
been friendly towards her. It was the worse for her.
But, so long as thou art good daughter to me, thou
shalt find me good father to thee ; " and for a mo-
ment there was a kindliness in his eye which made
it sufficiently like that of his brother to give some
consolation to the shrinking heart that he was rend-
ing from all it loved ; and she steadied her voice for
another gentle profession of obedience, for which
she felt strengthened by the morning's orisons.

"Well said, child. Now canst sit on old Mbelung's
croup ? His back-bone is somewhat sharper than if
he had battened in a citizen's stall; but, if thine

28 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

aunt can find thee some sort of pillion, I'll promise
thee the best ride thou hast had since we came from
Innspruck, ere thou canst remember."

" Christina has her own mule/' replied her uncle,
" without troubling Mbelung to carry double."

" Ho ! her own ! An overfed burgomaster sort of
a beast, that will turn restive at the first sight of the
Eagle's Ladder ! However, he may carry her so far,
and, if we cannot get him up the mountain, I shall
know what to do with him," he muttered to himself.

But Hugh, like many a gentleman after him, was
recusant at the sight of his daughter's luggage ; and
yet it only loaded one sumpter mule, besides form-
ing a few bundles which could be easily bestowed
upon the saddles of his two knappen, while her
lute hung by a silken string on her arm. Both
she and her aunt thought she had been extremely
moderate ; but his cry was, What could she want
with so much ? Her mother had never been allowed
more than would go into a pair of saddle-bags ; and
his own Jungfrau — she had never seen so much gear
together in her life ; he would be laughed to scorn
for his presumption in bringing such a fine lady into
the castle ; it would be well if Freiherr Eberhard's
bride brought half as much.

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 29

Still he had a certain pride in it — he was, after
all, by birth and breeding a burgher — and there had
been evidently a softening and civilizing influence in
the night spent beneath his paternal roof, amid old
habits, and perhaps likewise in the submission he
had met with from his daughter. The attendants,
too, who had been pleased with their quarters,
readily undertook to carry their share of the
burthen, and, though he growled and muttered a
little, he at length was won over to consent, chiefly,
as it seemed, by Christina's obliging readiness to leave
behind the bundle that contained her holiday kirtle.

He had been spared all needless irritation. Before
his waking, Christina had been at the priest's cell,
and had received his last blessings and counsels, and
she had, on the way back, exchanged her farewells
and tears with her two dearest friends, Barbara
Schmidt, and Kegina Grundt, confiding to the former
her cage of doves, and to the latter the myrtle,
which, like every German maiden, she cherished in
her window, to supply her future bridal wreath.
Now pale as death, but so resolutely composed as
to be almost disappointing to her demonstrative
aunt, she quietly went through her home partings ;
while Hausfrau Johanna adjured her father by all

30 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

that was sacred to be a true guardian and protector
of the child, and he could not forbear from a few
tormenting auguries about the lanzkneclit son-in-
law. Their effect was to make the good dame more
passionate in her embraces and admonitions to
Christina to take care of herself. She would have
a mass said every day that Heaven might have a
care of her !

Master Gottfried was going to ride as far as the
confines of the free city's territory, and his round,
sleek, cream-coloured palfrey, used to ambling in
civic processions, was as great a contrast to raw-
boned, wild-eyed Nibelung, all dappled with misty
grey, as was the stately, substantial burgher to his
lean, hungry-looking brother, or Dame Johanna's
dignified, curled, white poodle, which was forcibly
withheld from following Christina, to the coarse-
bristled, wolfish-looking hound who glared at the
household pet with angry and contemptuous eyes,
and made poor Christina's heart throb with terror
whenever it bounded near her.

Close to her uncle she kept, as beneath the trellised
porches that came down from the projecting gables
of the burghers' houses many a well-known face
gazed and nodded, as they took their way through

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 31

the crooked streets, many a beggar or poor widow
waved her a blessing. Out into the market-place,
with its clear fountain adorned with arches and
statues, past the rising Dome Kirk, where the
swarms of workmen unbonneted to the master-
carver, and the reiter paused with an irreverent
sneer at the small progress made since he could
first remember the building. How poor little
Christina's soul clung to every cusp of the lace-work
spire, every arch of the window, each of which she
had hailed as an achievement ! The tears had well-
nigh blinded her in a gush of feeling that came on
her unawares, and her mule had his own way as he
carried her under the arch of the tall and beautifully-
sculptured bridge tower, and over the noble bridge
across the Danube.

Her uncle spoke much, low and earnestly, to his
brother. She knew it was in commendation of her
to his care, and an endeavour to impress him with a
sense of the kind of protection she would require,
and she kept out of ear-shot. It was enough for her
to see her uncle" still, and feel that his tenderness
was with her, and around her. But at last he drew
his rein. " And now, my little one, the daughter of
my heart, I must bid thee farewell," he said.

32 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

Christina could not be restrained from springing
from her mule, and kneeling on the grass to receive
his blessing, her face hidden in her hands, that her
father might not see her tears.

" The good God bless thee, my child," said Gottfried,
who seldom invoked the saints ; " bless thee, and
bring thee back in His own good time. Thou hast
been a good child to us ; be so to thine own father.
Do thy work, and come back to us again."

The tears rained down his cheeks, as Christina's
head lay on his bosom, and then with a last kiss he
lifted her again on her mule, mounted his horse, and
turned back to the city, with his servant.

Hugh was merciful enough to let his daughter
gaze long after the retreating figure ere he summoned
her on. All day they rode, at first through meadow
lands and then through more broken, open ground,
where at mid- day they halted, and dined upon the
plentiful fare with which the housemother had pro-
vided them, over which Hugh smacked his lips, and
owned that they did live well in the old town !
Could Christina make such sausages ?
" Not as well as my aunt."

" Well, do thy best, and thou wilt win favour with
the baron."

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 33

The evening began to advance, and Christina was
very weary, as the purple mountains that she had
long watched with a mixture of fear and hope began
to look more distinct, and the ground was often in
abrupt ascents. Her father, without giving space
for complaints, hurried her on. He must reach the
Debateable Ford ere dark. It was, however, twilight
when they came to an open space, where, at the foot
of thickly forest-clad rising ground, lay an expanse
of turf and rich grass, through which a stream made
its way, standing in a wide tranquil pool as if to rest
after its rough course from the mountains. Above
rose, like a dark wall, crag upon crag, peak on peak,
in purple masses, blending with the sky ; and Hugh,
pointing upwards to a turreted point, apparently
close above their heads, where a star of light was
burning, told her that there was Adlerstein, and this
was the Debateable Ford.

In fact, as he explained, while splashing through
the shallow expanse, the stream had changed its
course. It was the boundary between the lands of
Schlangenwald and Adlerstein, but it had within the
last sixty years burst forth in a flood, and had then
declined to return to its own bed, but had flowed in
a fresh channel to the right of the former one. The

VOL. I. D

34 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

Freiherren von Adlerstein claimed the ground to the
•old channel, the Graffen von Schlangenwald held
that the river was the landmark ; and the dispute
had a greater importance than seemed explained
from the worth of the rushy space of ground in
question, for this was the passage of the Italian
merchants on their way from Constance, and every
load that was overthrown in the river was regarded
as the lawful prey of the noble on whose banks the
catastrophe befell.

Any freight of goods was anxiously watched by
"both nobles, and it was not their fault if no disaster
befell the travellers. Hugh talked of the Schlan-
genwald marauders with the bitterness of a deadly
feud, but manifestly did not breathe freely till his
whole convoy were safe across both the wet and the
dry channel.

Christina supposed they should now ascend to the
castle ; but her father laughed, saying that the castle
was not such a step off as she fancied, and that they
must have daylight for the Eagle's Stairs. He led
the way through the trees, up ground that she
thought mountain already, and finally arrived at a
miserable little hut, which served the purpose of
an inn.

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 35

He was received there with much obsequiousness,
and was plainly a great authority there. Christina,
weary and frightened, descended from her mule, and
was put under the protection of a wild, rough-look-
ing peasant woman, who stared at her like something
from another world, but at length showed her a nook
behind a mud partition, where she could spread her
mantle, and at least lie down, and tell her beads
unseen, if she could not sleep in the stifling, smoky
atmosphere, amid the sounds of carousal among her
father and his fellows.

The great hound came up and smelt to her. His
outline was so wolfish, that she had nearly screamed ;
but, more in terror at the men who might have
helped her than even at the beast, she tried to
smoothe him with her trembling hand, whispered
his name of " Festhold," and found him licking her
hand, and wagging his long rough tail. And he
finally lay down at her feet, as though to protect
her.

" Is it a sign that good angels will not let me be
hurt ? " she thought, and, wearied out, she slept.

D 2

36 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

.CHAPTER II.

THE EYRIE.

Cheistina Soeel awoke to a scene most unlike
that which had been wont to meet her eyes in her
own little wainscoted chamber high in the gabled
front of her uncle's house. It was a time when the
imperial free towns of Germany had advanced nearly
as far as those of Italy in civilization, and had
reached a point whence they retrograded grievously
during the Thirty Years' War, even to an extent that
they have never entirely recovered. The country
immediately around them shared the benefits of their
civilization, and the free peasant-proprietors lived
in great ease and prosperity, in beautiful and pic-
turesque farmsteads, enjoying a careless abundance,
and keeping numerous rural or religious feasts,
where old Teutonic mythological observances had
received a Christian colouring and adaptation.

In the mountains, or around the castles, it was
usually very different. The elective constitution of

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 37

the empire, the frequent change of dynasty, the
many disputed successions, had combined to render
the sovereign authority uncertain and feeble, and
it was seldom really felt save in the hereditary
dominions of the Kaiser for the time being. Thus,
while the cities advanced in the power of self-govern-
ment, and the education it conveyed, the nobles,
especially those whose abodes were not easily acces-
sible, were often practically under no government at
all, and felt themselves accountable to no man. The
old wild freedom of the Suevi, and other Teutonic
tribes, still technically, and in many cases practically,
existed. The Heretogen, Heerzogen, or, as we call
them, Dukes, had indeed accepted employment from
the Kaiser as his generals, and had received rewards
from him ; the Gerefen, or Graffen, of all kinds were
his judges, the titles of both being proofs of their
holding commissions from, and being thus dependent
on, the court. But the Freiherren, a word very inade-
quately represented by our French term of baron,
were absolutely free, " never in bondage to any
man," holding their own, and owing no duty, no
office; poorer, because unendowed by the royal autho-
rity, but holding themselves infinitely higher, than
the pensioners of the court. Left behind, however,

38 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

by their neighbours, who did their part by society,
and advanced with it, the Freiherren had been for
the most part obliged to give up their independence
and fall into the system, but so far in the rear, that
they ranked, like the barons of France and England,
as the last order of nobility.

Still, however, in the wilder and more mountainous
parts of the country, some of the old families of un-
reduced, truly free Freiherren lingered, their hand
against every man, every man's hand against them,
and ever becoming more savage, both positively and
still more proportionately, as their isolation and the
general progress around them became greater. The
House of Austria, by gradually absorbing here-
ditary states into its own possessions, was, however,
in the fifteenth century, acquiring a preponderance
that rendered its possession of the imperial throne
almost a matter of inheritance, and moreover ren-
dered the supreme power far more effective than it
had ever previously been. Freidrich III. a man still
in full vigour, and with an able and enterprising son
already elected to the succession, was making his
rule felt, and it was fast becoming apparent that the
days of the independent baronies were numbered,
and that the only choice that would soon be left

THE DOTE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 39

tliem would be between making terms and being
forcibly reduced. Von Adlerstein was one of the
oldest of these free families. If the lords of the
Eagle's Stone had ever followed the great Konrads
and Freidrichs of Swabia in their imperial days, their
descendants had taken care to forget the weakness,
and believed themselves absolutely free from all
allegiance.

And the wildness of their territory was what
might be expected from their hostility to all outward
influences. The hostel, if it deserved the name, was
little more than a charcoal-burner's hut, hidden in
the woods at the foot of the mountain, serving as a
halting-place for the Freiherren's retainers ere they
attempted the ascent. The inhabitants were allowed
to ply their trade of charring wood in the forest on
condition of supplying the castle with charcoal, and
of affording a lodging to the followers on occasions
like the present.

Grimy, half-clad, and brawny, with the whites of
his eyes gleaming out of his black face, Jobst the
Kohler startled Christina terribly when she came
into the outer room, and met him returning from his
night's work, with his long stoking-pole in his hancL
Her father shouted with laughter at her alarm.

40 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

" Thou tliinkest thyself in tlie land of the kobolds
and dwarfs, my girl ! Never mind, thon wilt see
worse than honest Jobst before thon hast done.
Now, eat a morsel and be ready — mountain air will
make thee hungry ere thon art at the castle. And,
hark thee, Jobst, thon mnst give stable-room to yon
snmpter-mnle for the present, and let some of my
daughter's gear lie in the shed."

" 0 father ! " exclaimed Christina, in dismay.

" We'll bring it up, child, by piecemeal," he said
in a low voice, " as we can ; but if such a freight
came to the castle at once, my lady would have her
claws on it, and little more wouldst thou ever see
thereof. Moreover, I shall have enough to do to look
after thee up the ascent, without another of these
city-bred beasts."

" I hope the poor mule will be well cared for. I

can pay for " began Christina ; but her father

squeezed her arm, and drowned her soft voice in his
loud tones.

" Jobst will take care of the beast, as belonging to
me. Woe betide him, if I find it the worse ! " — and
his added imprecations seemed unnecessary, so earnest
were the asseverations of both the man and his wife
that the animal should be well cared for.

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 41

" Look you, Christina," said Hugh Sorel, as soon
as he had placed her on her mule, and led her out of
hearing, " if thou hast any gold about thee, let it be
the last thing thou ownest to any living creature up
there." Then, as she was about to speak — " Do not
even tell me. I will not know." The caution did
not add much to Christina's comfort ; but she pre-
sently asked, " Where is thy steed, father ? "

" I sent him up to the castle with the Schneider-
lein and Yellow Lorentz," answered the father. " I
shall have ado enough on foot with thee before we
are up the Ladder."

The father and daughter were meantime proceeding
along a dark path through oak and birch woods,
constantly ascending, until the oak grew stunted and
disappeared, and the opening glades showed steep,
stony, torrent-furrowed ramparts of hillside above
them, looking to Christina's eyes as if she were set to
climb up the cathedral side like a snail or a fly. She
quite gasped for breath at the very sight, and was
told in return to wait and see what she would yet
say to the Adlerstreppe, or Eagle's Ladder. Poor
child ! she had no raptures for romantic scenery ;
she knew that jagged peaks made very pretty back-
grounds in illuminations, but she had much rather

42 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

Lave been in the smooth meadows of the environs of
Ulm. The Danube looked much more agreeable to
her, silver- winding between its green banks, than did
the same waters leaping down with noisy voices in
their stony, worn beds to feed the river that she only
knew in his grave breadth and majesty. Yet, alarmed
as she was, there was something in the exhilaration
and elasticity of the mountain air that gave her an
entirely new sensation of enjoyment and life, and
seemed to brace her limbs and spirits for whatever
might be before her ; and, willing to show herself
ready to be gratified, she observed on the freshness
and sweetness of the air.

" Thou find'st it out, child ? Ay, 'tis worth all the
feather-beds and pouncet-boxes in Ulm; is it not?
That accursed Italian fever never left me till I came
up here. A man can scarce draw breath in your
foggy meadows below there. Now then, here is the
view open. What think you of the Eagle's Nest ? "

For, having passed beyond the region of wood,
they had come forth upon the mountain-side. A not
immoderately steep slope of boggy, mossy-looking
ground covered with bilberries, cranberries, &c. and
with bare rocks here and there rising, went away
above out of her ken; but the path she was upon

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 43

turned round the shoulder of the mountain, and to
the left, on a ledge of rock cut off apparently on their
side by a deep ravine, and with a sheer precipice
above and below it, stood a red stone pile, with one
turret far above the rest.

" And this is Schloss Adlerstein ? " she exclaimed.

" That is Schloss Adlerstein ; and there shalt thou
be in two hours' time, unless the devil be more than
usually busy, or thou mak'st a fool of thyself. If so,
not Satan himself could save thee."

It was well that Christina had resolution to pre-
vent her making a fool of herself on the spot, for the
thought of the pathway turned her so dizzy that
she could only shut her eyes, trusting that her father
did not see her terror. Soon the turn round to the
side of the mountain was made, and the road became
a mere track worn out on the turf on the hill-side,
with an abyss beneath, close to the edge of which the
mule, of course, walked.

When she ventured to look again, she perceived
that the ravine was like an enormous crack open on
the mountain-side, and that the stream that formed
the Debateable Ford flowed down the bottom of it.
The ravine itself went probably all the way up the
mountain, growing shallower as it ascended higher j

44 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

but here, where Christina beheld it, it was extremely
deep, and savagely desolate and bare. She now saw
that the Eagle's Ladder was a succession of bare
gigantic terraces of rock, of which the opposite side
of the ravine was composed, and on one of which
stood the castle. It was no small mystery to her
how it had ever been built, or how she was ever to get
there. She saw in the opening of the ravine the green
meadows and woods far below ; and, when her father
pointed out to her the Debateable Ford, apparently
much nearer to the castle than they themselves were
at present, she asked why they had so far overpassed
the castle, and come by this circuitous course.

" Because," said Hugh, " we are not eagles out-
right, Seest thou not, just beyond the castle court,
this whole crag of ours breaks off short, falls like the
town wall straight down into the plain ? Even this
cleft that we are crossing by, the only road a horse
can pass, breaks off short and sudden too, so that the
river is obliged to take leaps which nought else but a
chamois could compass. A footpath there is, and
Freiherr Eberhard takes it at all times, being born to
it ; but even I am too stiff for the like. Ha ! ha !
Thy uncle may talk of the Kaiser and his League, but
he would change his note if we had him here."

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 45

" Yet castles have been taken by hunger," said
Christina.

" What, knowest thou so much ? — True ! But look
you/' pointing to a white foamy thread that descended
the opposite steeps, " yonder beck dashes through the
castle court, and it never dries ; and see you the
ledge the castle stands on ? It winds on out of your
sight, and forms a path which leads to the village of
Adlerstein, out on the other slope of the mountains ;
and ill were it for the serfs if they victualled not the
castle well."

The fearful steepness of the ground absorbed all
Christina's attention. The road, or rather stairs, came
down to the stream at the bottom of the fissure, and
then went again on the other side up still more tre-
mendous steeps, which Hugh climbed with a staff,
sometimes with his hand on the bridle, but more
often only keeping a watchful eye on the sure-footed
mule, and an arm to steady his daughter in the
saddle when she grew absolutely faint with giddi-
ness at -the abyss around her. She wras too much
in awe of him to utter cry or complaint, and, when
he saw her effort to subdue her mortal terror, he was
far from unkind, and let her feel his protecting
strength.

46 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

Presently a voice was heard above — " What, Sorel,
hast brought her ! Trudchen is wearying for her."

The words were in the most boorish dialect and
pronunciation, the stranger to Christina's ears, because
intercourse with foreign merchants, and a growing
affectation of Latinism, had much -refined the city
language to which she was accustomed ; and she was
surprised to perceive by her father's gesture and
address that the speaker must be one of the lords of
the castle. She looked up, and saw on the pathway
above her a tall, large-framed young man, his skin
dyed red with sun and wind, in odd contrast with his
pale shaggy hair, moustache, and beard, as though the
weather had tanned the one and bleached the other.
His dress was a still shabbier buff suit than her
father had worn, but with a richly-embroidered belt
sustaining a hunting-horn with finely-chased orna-
ments of tarnished silver, and an eagle's plume was
fastened into his cap with a large gold Italian coin.
He stared hard at the maiden, but vouchsafed her no
token of greeting — only distressed her considerably
by distracting her father's attention from her mule
by his questions about the journey, all in the same
rude, coarse tone and phraseology. Some amount of
illusion was dispelled. Christina was quite prepared

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE 'S NEST. 47

to find the mountain lords dangerous ruffians, but
she had expected the graces of courtesy and high
birth ; but, though there was certainly an air of
command and freedom of bearing about the present
specimen, his manners and speech were more uncouth
than those of any newly-caught apprentice of her
uncle, and she could not help thinking that her good
aunt Johanna need not have troubled herself about
the danger of her taking a liking to any such young
Freiherr as she here beheld.

By this time a last effort of the mule had climbed
to the level of the castle. As her father had shown
her, there was precipice on two sides of the building ;
on the third, a sheer wall of rock going up to a huge
height before it reached another of the Eagle's Steps ;
and on the fourth, where the gateway was, the little
beck had been made to flow in a deep channel that
had been hollowed out to serve as a moat, before it
bounded down to swell the larger water-course in the
ravine. A temporary bridge had been laid across ;
the drawbridge was out of order, and part of Hugh's
business had been to procure materials for mending
its apparatus. Christina was told to dismount and
cross on foot. The unrailed board, so close to the
abyss, and with the wild water foaming above and

48 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

below, was dreadful to her ; and, though she durst not
speak, she hung back with an involuntary shudder,
as her father, occupied with the mule, did not think
of giving her a hand. The young baron burst out
into an unrestrained laugh — a still greater shock to
her feelings ; but at the same time he roughly took
her hand, and almost dragged her across, saying,
" City bred — ho, ho ! " " Thanks, sir," she strove to
say, but she was very near weeping with the terror
and strangeness of all around.

The low-browed gateway, barely high enough to
admit a man on horseback, opened before her, almost
to her feelings like the gate of the grave, and she
could not help crossing herself, with a silent prayer
for protection, as she stepped under it, and came into
the castle court — not such a court as gave its name
to fair courtesy, but, if truth must be told, far more
resembling an ill-kept, ill-savoured stable-yard, with
the piggeries opening into it. In unpleasantly close
quarters, the Schneiderlein, or little tailor, i.e. the
biggest and fiercest of all the knappen, was grooming
Mbelung; three long-backed, long-legged, frightful
swine were grubbing in a heap of refuse ; four or five
gaunt ferocious-looking dogs came bounding up to
greet their comrade Festhold ; and a great old long-

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S XEST. 49

bearded goat stood on the top of the mixen, looking
much disposed to butt at any new comer. The Sorel
family had brought cleanliness from Flanders, and
Hausfrau Johanna was scrupulously dainty in all her
appointments. Christina scarcely knew how she con-
veyed herself and her blue kirtle across the bemired
stones to the next and still darker portal, under
which a wide but rough ill-hewn stair ascended. The
stables, in fact, occupied the lower floor of the main
building, and not till these stairs had ascended above
them did they lead out into the castle hall. Here
were voices — voices rude and harsh, like those Chris-
tina had shrunk from in passing drinking booths.
There was a long table, with rough men-at-arms
lounging about, and staring rudely at her ; and at the
upper end, by a great open chimney, sat, half-dozing,
an elderly man, more rugged in feature than his son ;
and yet, when he roused himself and spoke to Hugh,
there was a shade more of breeding, and less of
clownishness, in his voice and deportment, as if he
had been less entirely devoid of training. A tall
darkly-robed woman stood beside him — it was her
harsh tone of reproof and command that had so
startled Christina as she entered — and her huge
towering cap made her look gigantic in the dim light
VOL. I. E

50 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

of the smoky hall. Her features had been handsome,
but had become hardened into a grim wooden aspect ;
and with sinking spirits Christina paused at the step
of the dai's, and made her reverence, wishing she
could sink beneath the stones of the pavement out of
sight of these terrible personages.

" So that's the wench you have taken all this
trouble for/' was Freiherrinn Kunigunde's greeting.
" She looks like another sick baby to nurse ; but I'll
have no trouble about her ; — that is all. Take her up
to Ermentrude ; and thou, girl, have a care thou dost
her will, and puttest none of thy city fancies into her
head."

" And hark thee, girl," added the old Freiherr,
sitting up. " So thou canst nurse her well, thou shalt
have a new gown and a stout husband."

" That way," pointed the lady towards one of the
four corner towers ; and Christina moved doubtfully
towards it, reluctant to quit her father, her only pro-
tector, and afraid to introduce herself. The younger
Freiherr, however, stepped before her, went striding
two or three steps at a time up the turret stair, and,
before Christina had wound her way up, she heard
a thin, impatient voice say, " Thou saidst she was
come, Elbo."

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 51

" Yes, even so," she heard Freiherr Eberhard re-
turn ; " but she is slow and townbred. She was
afraid of crossing the moat," And then both laughed.,
so that Christina's cheeks tingled as she emerged
from the turret into another vaulted room. " Here
she is," quoth the brother ; " now will she make thee
quite well."

It was a very bare and desolate room, with no
hangings to the rough stone walls, and scarcely any
furniture, except a great carved bedstead, one wooden
chair, a table, and some stools. On the bare floor, in
front of the fire, her arm under her head, and a pro-
fusion of long hair falling round her like flax from a
distaff, lay wearily a little figure, beside whom Sir
Eberhard was kneeling on one knee.

" Here is my sisterling," said lie, looking up to
the new-comer. " They say you burgherwomen have
ways of healing the sick. Look at her. Think you
you can heal her ? "

In an excess of dumb shyness Ermentrude half
rose, and effectually hindered any observations on
her looks by hiding her face away upon her brother's
knee. It was the gesture of a child of five years old.
but Ermentrude's length of limb forbade Christina
to suppose her less than fourteen or fifteen. " What, ^*

E 2

*F

\

52 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

wilt not look at her?" he said, trying to raise her
head; and then, holding out one of her wasted,
feverish hands to Christina, he again asked, with a
wistfulness that had a strange effect from the large,
tall man, almost ten years her elder, " Canst thou
cure her, maiden ? "

" I am no doctor, sir," replied Christina ; " but I
could, at least, make her more comfortable. The
stone is too hard for her."

" I will not go away ; I want the fire," murmured
the sick girl, holding out her hands towards it, and
shivering.

Christina quickly took off her own thick cloth
mantle, well lined with dressed lambskins, laid it on
the floor, rolled the collar of it over a small log of
wood — the only substitute she could see for a pillow —
and showed an inviting couch in an instant. Ermen-
trude let her brother lay her down, and then was
covered with the ample fold. She smiled as she
turned up her thin, wasted face, faded into the same
whitey-brown tint as her hair. " That is good," she
said, but without thanks ; and, feeling the soft
lambswool : " Is that what you burgh erwomen wear ?
Father is to give me a furred mantle, if only some
court dame would pass the Debateable Ford. But the

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 53

Schlangenwaldern got the last before ever we could
get down. Jobst was so stupid. He did not give us
warning in time ; but he is to be hung next time if
he does not."

Christina's blood curdled as she heard this speech
in a weak little complaining tone, that otherwise put
her sadly in mind of Barbara Schmidt's little sister,
who had pined and wasted to death. " Xever mind,
Trudchen," answered the brother kindly ; " meantime
I have kept all the wild catskins for thee, and may
be this — this — she could sew them up into a mantle
for thee."

" 0 let me see," cried the young lady eagerly ; and
Sir Eberhard, walking off, presently returned with an
armful of the beautiful brindled furs of the moun-
tain cat, reminding Christina of her aunt's gentle
domestic favourite. Ermentrude sat up, and re-
garded the placing out of them with great interest ;
and thus her brother left her employed, and so much
delighted that she had not flagged, when a great bell
proclaimed that it was the time for the noontide
meal, for which Christina, in spite of all her fears
of the company below stairs, had been constrained
by mountain air to look forward with satisfaction.

Ermentrude, she found, meant to go down, but

54 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

with no notion of the personal arrangements that
Christina had been wont to think a needful pre-
liminary. With all her hair streaming, down she
went, and was so gladly welcomed by her father that
it was plain that her presence was regarded as an
unusual advance towards recovery, and Christina
feared lest he might already be looking out for the
stout husband. She had much to tell him about the
catskin cloak, and then she was seized with eager
curiosity at the sight of Christina's bundles, and
especially at her lute, which she must hear at once.

" Not now," said her mother, " there will be jan-
gling and jingling enough by and by — meat now."

The whole establishment were taking their places
— or rather tumbling into them. A battered, shape-
less metal vessel seemed to represent the salt-cellar,
and next to it Hugh Sorel seated himself, and kept
a place for her besiole him. Otherwise she would
hardly have had seat or food. She was now able to
survey the inmates of the castle. Besides the family
themselves, there were about a dozen men, all ruf-
fianly-looking, and of much lower grade than her
father, and three women. One, old Ursel, the wife
•of Hatto the forester, was a bent, worn, but not ill-
looking woman, with a motherly face : the younger

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S XEST. 55

ones were hard, bold creatures, from whom Christina
felt a shrinking recoil. The meal was dressed by Ursel
and her kitchen boy. From a great cauldron, goat's
flesh and broth together were ladled out into wooden
bowls. That every one provided their own spoon
and knife — no fork — was only what Christina was
used to in the most refined society, and she had the
implements in a pouch hanging to her girdle ; but
she was not prepared for the unwashed condition of
the bowls, nor for being obliged to share that of her
father — far less for the absence of all blessing on the
meal, and the coarse boisterousness of manners pre-
vailing thereat. Hungry as she was, she did not
find it easy to take food under these circumstances,
and she was relieved when Ermentrude was over-
come by the turmoil, grew giddy, and was carried up-
stairs by her father, who laid her down upon her
great bed, and left her ';o the attendance of Christina.
Ursel had followed, but was petulantly repulsed by
her young lady in favour of the new-comer, and
went away grumbling.

Nestled on her bed, Ermentrude insisted on hear-
ing the lute, and Christina had to creep down to
fetch it, with some other of her goods, in trembling
haste, and redoubled disgust at the aspect of the

56 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

meal, which looked even more repulsive in this
later stage, and to one who was no longer partaking
of it.

Low and softly, with a voice whence she could
scarcely banish tears, and in dread of attracting
attention, Christina sung to the sick girl, who lis-
tened with a sort of rude wonder, and finally was
lulled to sleep. Christina ventured to lay down her
instrument and move towards the window, heavily
mullioned with stone, barred with iron, and glazed
with thick glass ; being in fact the only glazed win-
dow in the castle. To her great satisfaction it did
not look out over the loathsome court, but over the
opening of the ravine. The apartment occupied the
whole floor of the keep ; it was stone-paved, but the
roof was boarded, and there was a round turret at
each angle. One contained the staircase, and was
that which ran up above the keep, served as a watch-
tower, and supported the Eagle banner. The other
three were empty, and one of these, which had a
strong door, and a long loophole window looking out
over the open country, Christina hoped that she
might appropriate. The turret was immediately
over the perpendicular cliff that descended into the
plain. A stone thrown from the window would have

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S XEST. 57

gone straight down, she knew not where. Close to
her ears rushed the descending waterfall in its leap
over the rock side, and her eyes could rest themselves
on the green meadow land below, and the smooth
water of the Debateable Ford: nay — far, far away
beyond retreating ridges of wood and field — she
thought she could track a silver line, and guided by
it, a something that might be a city. Her heart
leapt towards it, but she was recalled by Errnen-
trude's fretfully imperious voice.

" I was only looking forth from the window, lady,"
she said, returning.

" Ah ! thou saw'st no travellers at the Ford ?" cried
Ermentrude, starting up with lively interest.

" Ko, lady ; I was gazing at the far distance.
Know you if it be indeed Ulm that we see from
these windows ?"

" Ulm ? That is where thou comest from ? " said
Ermentrude languidly.

" My happy home, with my dear uncle and aunt !
0, if I can but see it hence, it will be joy !"

" I do not know. Let me see," said Ermentrude,
rising ; but at the window her pale blue eyes gazed
vacantly as if she did not know what she was look-
ing at or for.

58 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

" All ! if the steeple of the Dome Kirk were but
finished, I could not mistake it," said Christina.
" How beauteous the white spire will look from
hence ! "

"Dome Kirk?" repeated Ermentrude; "what is
that ?"

Such an entire blank as the poor child's mind
seemed to be was inconceivable to the maiden, who
had been bred up in the busy hum of men, where
the constant resort of strange merchants, the daily-
interests of a self-governing municipality, and the
numerous festivals, both secular and religious, were
an unconscious education, even without that which
had been bestowed upon her by teachers, as well as
by her companionship with her uncle, and participa-
tion in his studies, taste, and arts.

Ermentrude von Adlerstein had, on the contrary,
not only never gone beyond the Kohler's hut on the
one side, and the mountain village on the other, but
•she had never seen more of life than the festival at
the wake at the hermitage chapel there on Mid-
summer-day. The only strangers who ever came to
the castle were disbanded lanzknechts who took
service with her father, or now and then a captive
whom he put to ransom. She knew absolutely

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 59

nothing of the world, except for a general belief that
Freiherren lived there to do what they chose with
other people, and that the House of Adlerstein was
the freest and noblest in existence. Also there was
a very positive hatred to the House of Schlangen-
wald, and no less to that of Adlerstein "Wildschloss,
for no reason that Christina could discover save
that, being a younger branch of the family, they
had submitted to the Emperor. To destroy either
the Graf von Schlangenwald, or her ^Vildschloss
cousin, was evidently the highest gratification Er-
mentrude could conceive ; and, for the rest, that her
father and brother should make successful captures
at the Debateable Ford was the more abiding, be-
cause more practicable hope. She had no further ideas,
except perhaps to elude her mother's severity, and
to desire her brother's success in chamois-hunting.
The only mental culture she had ever received was
that old Ursel had taught her the Credo, Pater
Xoster, and Ave, as correctly as might be expected
from a long course of traditionary repetitions of an
incomprehensible language. And she knew besides
a few German rhymes and jingles, half Christian,
half heathen, with a legend or two which, if the
names were Christian, ran grossly wild from all

60 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

Christian meaning or morality. As to the amenities,
nay, almost the proprieties, of life, they were less
known in that baronial castle than in any artisan's
house at Ulm. So little had the sick girl figured
them to herself, that she did not even desire any
greater means of ease than she possessed. She
moaned and fretted indeed, with aching limbs and
blank weariness, but without the slightest formed
desire for anything to remove her discomfort, except
the few ameliorations she knew, such as sitting on
her brother's knee, with her head on his shoulder,
or tasting the mountain berries that he gathered for
her. Any other desire she exerted herself to frame
was for finery to be gained from the spoils of
travellers.

And this was Christina's charge, whom she must
look upon as the least alien spirit in this dreadful
castle of banishment ! The young and old lords
seemed to her savage bandits, who frightened her
only less than did the proud sinister expression of the
old lady, for she had not even the merit of showing
any tenderness towards the sickly girl, of whom she
was ashamed, and evidently regarded the town-bred
attendant as a contemptible interloper.

Long, long did the maiden weep and pray that

THE DOYE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 61

night after Ermentracle had sunk to sleep. She
strained her eyes with home-sick longings to detect
lights where she thought Ulni might be ; and, as she
thought of her uncle and aunt, the poodle and the
cat round the stove, the maids spinning and the
prentices knitting as her uncle read aloud some
grave good book, most probably the legend of the
saint of the day, and contrasted it with the rude
gruff sounds of revelry that found their way up the
turret stairs, she could hardly restrain her sobs from
awakening the young lady whose bed she was to
share. She thought almost with envy of her own
patroness, who was cast into the lake of Bolsena
with a millstone about her neck — a better fate,
thought she, than to live on in such an abode of
loathsomeness and peril.

But then had not St. Christina floated up alive,
bearing up her millstone with her? And had not
she been put into a dungeon full of venomous rep-
tiles who, when they approached her, had all been
changed to harmless doves? Christina had once
asked Father Balthazar how this could be ; and had
he not replied that the Church did not teach these
miracles as matters of faith, but that she might
there discern in figure how meek Christian holiness

62 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

rose above all crushing burthens, and transformed
the rudest natures. This poor maiden — dying, per-
haps ; and oh ! how unfit to live or die ! — might it
be her part to do some good work by her, and infuse
some Christian hope, some godly fear % Could it be
for this that the saints had led her hither ?

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 63

CHAPTER III.

THE FLOTSOM AND JETSOM OF THE DEBATEABLE
FORD.

Life in Scliloss Adlerstein was little less intolerable
than Christina's imagination had depicted it. It was
entirely devoid of all the graces of chivalry, and its
squalor and coarseness, magnified into absurdity by
haughtiness and violence, were almost inconceivable.
Fortunately for her, the inmates of the castle resided
almost wholly below stairs in the hall and kitchen,
and in some dismal dens in the thickness of their
walls. The height of the keep was intended for
dignity and defence, rather than for habitation ; and
the upper chamber, with its great state-bed, where
everybody of the house of Adlerstein was born and
died, was not otherwise used, except when Ermentrude.
unable to bear the oppressive confusion below stairs,
had escaped thither for quietness' sake. Xo one else
wished to inhabit it. The, chamber above was filled
with the various appliances for the defence of the

64 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

castle ; and no one would have ever gone up the turret
stairs had not a warder been usually kept on the roof
to watch the roads leading to the Ford. Otherwise
the Adlersteiners had all the savage instinct of herd-
ing together in as small a space as possible.

Freiherrinn Kunigunde hardly ever mounted to her
daughter's chamber. All her affection was centred
on the strong and manly son, of whom she was
proud, while the sickly pining girl, who would hardly
find a mate of her own rank, and who had not even
dowry enough for a convent, was such a shame and
burthen to her as to be almost a distasteful object.
But perversely, as it seemed to her, the only daughter
was the darling of both father and brother, who were
ready to do anything to gratify the girl's sick fancies,
and hailed with delight her pleasure in her new
attendant. Old Ursel was at first rather envious and
contemptuous of the childish fragile stranger, but her
gentleness disarmed the old woman ; and, when it
was plain that the young lady's sufferings were greatly
lessened by tender care, dislike gave way to attach-
ment, and there was little more murmuring at the
menial services that were needed by the two maidens,
even when Ermentrude's feeble fancies, or Christina's
views of dainty propriety, rendered them more onerous

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 65

than before. She was even heard to rejoice that some
Christian care and tenderness had at last reached her
poor neglected child.

It was well for Christina that she had such an all}'.
The poor child never crept downstairs to the dinner
or supper, to fetch food for Ermentrude, or water for
herself, without a trembling and shrinking of heart
and nerves. Her father's authority guarded her from
rude actions, but from rough tongues he neither could
nor would guard her, nor understand that what to
some would have been a compliment seemed to her
an alarming insult ; and her chief safeguard lay in
her own insignificance and want of attraction, and
still more in the modesty that concealed her terror at
rude jests sufficiently to prevent frightening her from
becoming an entertainment.

Her father, whom she looked on as a cultivated
person in comparison with the rest of the world, did
his best for her after his own views, and gradually
brought her all the properties she had left at the
Kohler's hut. Therewith she made a great difference
in the aspect of the chamber, under the full sanction
of the lords of the castle. Wolf, deer, and sheep
skins abounded ; and with these, assisted by her
father and old Hatto, she tapestried the lower part

VOL. I. F

66 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

of the bare grim walls, a great bear's hide covered
trie neighbourhood of the hearth, and cushions
were made of these skins, and stuffed from Ursel's
stores of feathers. All these embellishments were
watched with great delight by Ermentrude, who had
never been made of so much importance, and was as
much surprised as relieved by such attentions. She
was too young and too delicate to reject civilization,
and she let Christina braid her hair, bathe her, and
arrange her dress, with sensations of comfort that
were almost like health. To train her into occupying
herself was, however, as Christina soon found, in her
present state, impossible. She could spin and sew a
little, but hated both ; and her clumsy listless fingers
only soiled and wasted Christina's needles, silk, and
lute strings, and such damage was not so easily re-
medied as in the streets of Ulm. She was best pro-
vided for when looking on at her attendant's busy
hands, and asking to be sung to, or to hear tales of
the active, busy scenes of the city life — the dresses,
fairs, festivals, and guild processions.

The gentle nursing and the new interests made her
improve in health, so that her father w7as delighted,
and Christina began to hope for a return home.
Sometimes the two girls would take the air, either,

07

on still days, upon the battlements, where Ermen-
trude watched the Debateable Eord, and Christina
gazed at the Danube and at Ulm ; or they would
find their way to a grassy nook on the niountain-side,
where Christina gathered gentians and saxifrage,
trying to teach her yonng lady that they were worth
looking at, and sighing at the thought of Master
Gottfried's wreath when she met with the asphodel
seed-vessels. Once the quiet mule was brought into
requisition ; and, with her brother walking by her,
and Sorel and his daughter in attendance, Ermen-
trude rode towards the village of Adlerstein. It was
a collection of miserable huts, on a sheltered slope
towards the south, where there was earth enough to
grow some wretched rye and buckwheat, subject to
severe toll from the lord of the soil. Perched on a
hollow rock above the slope was a rude little church,
over a cave where a hermit had once lived and died
in such odour of sanctity that, his day happening to
coincide with that of St. John the Baptist, the Blessed
Friedmuncl had acquired the credit of the lion's share
both of the saint's honours and of the old solstitial
feast of Midsummer. This wake was the one gaiety
of the year, and attracted a fair which was the sole
occasion of coming honestly by anything from the
F2

68 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

outer world; nor had his cell ever lacked a pro-
fessional anchorite.

The Freiherr of his day had been a devout man,
who had gone pilgrimage with Kaiser Friedrich of
the Bed Beard, and had brought home a bit of stone
from the council chamber of Nicsea, with which he
had presented the little church that he had built
over the cavern. He had named his son Friedmund ;
and there were dim memories of his days as of a
golden age, before the Wilclschlossen had carried off
the best of the property, and when all went well.

This was Christina's first sight of a church since
her arrival, except that in the chapel, which was a
dismal neglected vault, where a ruinous altar and
mouldering crucifix testified to its sacred purpose.
The old baron had been excommunicated for twenty
years, ever since he had harried the w^ains of the
Bishop of Augsburg on his wTay to the Diet ; and,
though his household and family were not under the
same sentence, " Sunday didna come abune the pass."
Christina's entreaty obtained permission to enter the
little building, but she had knelt there only a few
moments before her father came to hurry her away,
and her supplications that he would some day take
her to mass there were whistled down the wind ; and

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S XEST. 69

indeed the hermit was a layman, and the church was
only served on great festivals by a nionk from the
convent of St. Buprecht, on the distant side of the
mountain, which was further supposed to be in the
Schlangenwald interest. Her best chance lay in in-
fusing the desire into Ermentrude. who by watching
her prayers and asking a few questions had begun to
acquire a few clearer ideas. And what Ermentrude
wished had always hitherto been acquiesced in by
the two lords.

The elder baron came little into Christina's way.
He meant to be kind to her, but she was dreadfully
afraid of him, and, when he came to visit his daugh-
ter, shrank out of his notice as much as possible,
shuddering most of all at his attempts at civilities.
His son she viewed as one of the thickwitted giants
meant to be food for the heroism of good knights of
romance. Except that he was fairly conversant with
the use of weapons, and had occasionally ridden
beyond the shadow of his own mountain, his range
was quite as limited as his sister's ; and he had an
equal scorn for all beyond it. His unfailing kindness
to his sister was, however, in his favour, and he
always eagerly followed up any suggestion Christina
made for her pleasure. Much of his time was spent

70 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

on the child, whose chief nurse and playmate he had
been throughout her malady ; and when she showed
him the stranger's arrangements, or repeated to him,
in a wondering, blundering way, with constant ap-
peals to her attendant, the new tales she had heard, he
used to listen with a pleased awkward amazement at
his little Ermentrucle's astonishing cleverness, joined
sometimes with real interest, which was evinced by
his inquiries of Christina, He certainly did not ad-
mire the little slight pale bower-maiden, but he seemed
to look upon her like some strange, almost uncanny,
wise spirit out of some other sphere, and his manner
towards her had none of the offensive freedom ap-
parent in even the old man's patronage. It was, as
Ermentrude once said, laughing, almost as if he
feared that she might do something to him.

Christina had expected to see a ruffian, and had
found a boor ; but she was to be convinced that the
ruffian existed in him. Notice came up to the castle
of a convoy of waggons, and all was excitement.
Men-at-arms were mustered, horses led down the
Eagle's Ladder, and an ambush prepared in the
woods. The autumn rains were already swelling the
floods, and the passage of the ford would be difficult
enough to afford the assailants an easy prey.

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLES XEST. J I

The Freiherrinn Kunigunde herself, and all the
women of the castle, hurried into Ermentrude's room
to enjoy the view from her window. The young lady
herself was full of eager expectation, but she knew
enough of her maiden to expect no sympathy from
her, and loved her well enough not to bring down on
her her mother's attention; so Christina crept into
her turret, unable to withdraw her eyes from the
sight, trembling, weeping, praying, longing for power
to give a warning signal. Could they be her own
townsmen stopped on the way to dear Ulm ?

She could see the waggons in mid-stream, the
warriors on the bank ; she heard the triumphant out-
cries of the mother and daughter in the outer room.
She saw the overthrow, the struggle, the flight of a
few scattered dark figures on the farther side, the
drawing out of the goods on the nearer. Oh ! were
those leaping waves bearing down any good men's
corpses to the Danube, slain, foully slain by her own
father and this gang of robbers ?

She was glad that Ermentrude went down with
her mother to watch the return of the victors. She
crouched on the floor, sobbing, shuddering with grief
and indignation, and telling her beads alike for mur-
dered and murderers, till, after the sounds of welcome

72 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

and exultation, she heard Sir Eberhard's heavy tread,
as he carried his sister upstairs. Ermentrude went
up at once to Christina.

" After all there was little for us ! " she said. " It
Avas only a wain of wine barrels ; and now will the
drunkards downstairs make good cheer. But Ebbo
could only win for me this gold chain and medal,
which was round the old merchant's neck."

" Was he slain ? " Christina asked with pale
lips.

" I only know I did not kill him," returned the
baron ; " I had him down and got the prize, and that
was enough for me. What the rest of the fellows
may have done, I cannot say."

" But he has brought thee something, Stina," con-
tinued Ermentrude. " Show it to her, brother."

" My father sends you this for your care of my
sister," said Eberhard, holding out a brooch that had
doubtless fastened the band of the unfortunate ^due-
merchant's bonnet.

" Thanks, sir ; but, indeed, I may not take it," said
Christina, turning crimson, and drawing back.

" So ! " he exclaimed, in amaze ; then bethinking
himself, — " They are no townsfolk of yours, but Con-
stance cowards."

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE S NEST. 73

" Take it, take it, Stina, or you will anger my
father," added Ernientrade.

" No, lady, I thank the barons both, but it were sin
in me," said Christina, with trembling voice.

" Look you," said Eberhard ; * we have the full
right — 'tis a seignorial right — to all the goods of
every wayfarer that may be overthrown in our river —
as I am a true knight ! " he added, earnestly.

" A true knight ! " repeated Christina, pushed hard,
and very indignant in all her terror. " The true
knight's part is to aid, not rob, the weak." And the
dark eyes flashed a vivid light.

" Christina ! " exclaimed Ermentrude, in the ex-
tremity of her amazement, " know you what you
have said ? — that Eberhard is no true knight ! "

He meanwhile stood silent, utterly taken by sur-
prise, and letting his little sister fight his battles.

" I cannot help it, Lady Ermentrude," said Chris-
tina, with trembling lips, and eyes filling with tears.
"You may drive me from the castle — I only long to be
away from it ; but I cannot stain my soul by sayin g
that spoil and rapine are the deeds of a true knight."

" My mother will beat you," cried Ermentrude,
passionately, ready to fly to the head of the stairs ;
but her brother laid his hand upon her.

74 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE 's NEST.

" Tush, Trudclien ; keep thy tongue still, child !
What does it hurt me ? "

And he turned on his heel and went downstairs.
Christina crept into her turret, weeping bitterly and
with many a wild thought. Would they visit her
offence on her father ? Would they turn them both
out together ? If so, would not her father hurl her
down the rocks rather than return her to Ulm;
Could she escape? Climb down the dizzy rocks, it
might be, succour the merchant lying half dead on
the meadows, protect and be protected, be once more
among God-fearing Christians ? And as she felt her
helplessness, the selfish thoughts passed into a gush
of tears for the murdered man, lying suffering there,
and for his possible wife and children watching for
him. Presently Ermentrude peeped in.

" Stina, Stina, don't cry ; I will not tell my mother I
Come out, and finish my kerchief ! Come out ! No
one shall beat you."

" That is not what I wept for, lady," said Chris-
tina. " I do not think you would bring harm on me.
But oh ! I would I were at home ! I grieve for the
bloodshed that I must see and may not hinder, and
for that poor merchant."

" Oh," said Ermentrude, " you need not fear for

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 75

him ! I saw his own folk return and lift him up.
But what is he to thee or to us ? "

" I am a burgher maid, lady," said Christina, re-
covering herself, and aware that it was of little use
to bear testimony to such an auditor as poor little
Ermentrude against the deeds of her own father and
brother, which had in reality the sort of sanction
Sir Eberhard had mentioned, much akin to those
coast rights that were the temptation of wreckers.

Still she could not but tremble at the thought of
her speech, and went clown to supper in greater
trepidation than usual, dreading that she should be
expected to thank the Freiherr for his gift. But,
fortunately, manners were too rare at Adlerstein for
any such omission to be remarkable, and the whole
establishment was in a state of noisy triumph and
merriment over the excellence of the French wine
they had captured, so that she slipped into her seat
unobserved.

Every available drinking-horn and cup was full.
Ermentrude was eagerly presented with draughts by
both father and brother, and presently Sir Eberhard
exclaimed, turning towards the shrinking Christina
with a rough laugh, " Maiden, I trow thou wilt not
taste ? "

76 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

Christina shook her head, and framed a negative
with her lips.

" What's this ? " asked her father, close to whom
she sat. " Is't a fast-clay ? "

There was a panse. Many were present who re-
garded a fast-day much more than the lives or goods
•of their neighbours. Christina again shook her
head.

" No matter," said good-natured Sir Eberhard,
evidently wishing to avert any ill consequences
from her. " Tis only her loss."

The mirth went on rough and loud, and Christina
felt this the worst of all the miserable meals she had
partaken of in fear and trembling at this place of
her captivity. Ermentrude, too, was soon in such a
state of excitement, that not only was Christina's
womanhood bitterly ashamed and grieved for her,
but there was serious danger that she might at any
moment break, out with some allusion to her maiden's
recusancy in her reply to Sir Eberhard.

Presently, however, Ermentrude laid down her
head and began to cry — violent headache had come
on — and her brother took her in his arms to carry
her up the stairs ; but his potations had begun before
hers, and his step was far from steady ; he stumbled

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLES NEST. 77

more than once on the steps, shook and frightened
his sister, and set her down weeping petulantly.
And then came a more terrible moment ; his awe
of Christina had passed away; he swore that she
was a lovely maiden, with only too free a tongue, and
that a kiss must be the seal of her pardon.

A house full of intoxicated men, no living creature
who would care to protect her, scarce even her father !
But extremity of terror gave her strength. She
spoke resolutely —

"Sir Eberhard, your sister is ill — you are in no
state to be here. Go down at once, nor insult a free
maiden."

Probably the low-toned softness of the voice, so
utterly different from the shrill wrangling notes of
all the other women he had known, took him by
surprise. He was still sober enough to be subdued,
almost cowed, by resistance of a description unlike
allj he had ever seen ; his alarm at Christina's
superior power returned in full force, he staggered
to the stairs, Christina rushed after him, closed the
heavy door with all her force, fastened it inside, and
would have sunk down to weep but for Ermentrude's
peevish wail of distress.

Happily Ermentrude was still a child, and, neg-

78 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

lected as she had been, she still had had no one to
make her precocious in matters of this kind. She
was quite willing to take Christina's view of the
case, and not resent the exclusion of her brother ;
indeed, she was unwell enough to dread the loudness
of his voice and rudeness of his revelry.

So the door remained shut, and Christina's resolve
was taken that she would so keep it while the wine
lasted. And, indeed, Ermentrude had so much fever
all that night and the next day that no going down
could be thought of. Nobody came near the maidens
but Ursel, and she described one continued orgie that
made Christina shudder again with fear and disgust.
Those below revelled without interval, except for
sleep ; and they took their sleep just where they
happened to sink down, then returned again to the
liquor. The old baroness repaired to the kitchen
when the revelry went beyond even her bearing ;
but all the time the vine held out, the swine in the
court were, as Ursel averred, better company than
the men in the hall. Yet there might have been
worse even than this ; for old Ursel whispered that
at the bottom of the stairs there was a trap-door.
Did the maiden know what it covered ? It was an
oubliette. There was once a Strasburg armourer

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 79

who had refused ransom, and talked of appealing to

the Kaisar. He trod on that door and Ursel

pointed downwards. "But since that time/' she
said, " my young lord has never brought home a
prisoner."

No wonder that all this time Christina cowered at
the discordant sounds below, trembled, and prayed
while she waited on her poor young charge, who
tossed and moaned in fever and suffering. She was
still far from recovered when the materials of the
debauch failed, and the household began to return to
its usual state. She was soon restlessly pining for
her brother; and when her father came up to see
her, received him with scant welcome, and entreaties
for Ebbo. She knew she should be better if she
might only sit on his knee, and lay her head on his
shoulder. The old Ereiherr offered to accommodate
her ; but she rejected him petulantly, and still called
for Ebbo, till he went down, promising that her
brother should come.

With a fluttering heart Christina awaited the
noble whom she had perhaps insulted, and whose
advances had more certainly insulted her. \Vould
he visit her with his anger, or return to that more
offensive familiarity? She longed to flee out of

80 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

sight, when, after a long interval, his heavy tread
was heard ; but she could not even take refuge in
her turret, for Ermentrude was leaning against her.
Somehow, the step was less assured than usual ; he
absolutely knocked at the door ; and, when he came
in, he acknowledged her by a slight inclination of
the head. If she only had known it, this was the
first time that head had ever been bent to any being,
human or Divine ; but all she did perceive was that
Sir Eberhard was in neither of the moods she
dreaded, only desperately shy and sheepish, and ex-
tremely ashamed, not indeed of his excess, which
would have been, even to a much tamer German
baron, only a happy accident, but of what had passed
between himself and her.

He was much grieved to perceive how much
ground Ermentrude had lost, and gave himself up
to fondling and comforting her ; and in a few days
more, in their common cares for the sister, Christina
lost her newly-acquired horror of the brother, and
could not but be grateful for his forbearance ; while
she was almost entertained by the increased awe of
herself shown by this huge robber baron.

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE' S NEST. 81

CHAPTEK IV.

SNOW-WREATHS WHEN 'TIS THAW.

Ermentrude had by no means recovered the
ground she had lost, before the winter set in; and
blinding snow came drifting down day and night,
rendering the whole view, above and below, one
expanse of white, only broken by the peaks of rock
which were too steep to sustain the snow. The
waterfall lengthened its icicles daily, and the whole
court was heaped with snow, up even to the top
of the high steps to the hall; and thus, Christina
was told, would it continue all the winter. What
had previously seemed to her a strangely door-like
window above the porch now became the only mode
of egress, when the barons went out bear or wolf-
hunting, or the younger took his crossbow and
hound to provide the wild-fowl, which, under Chris-
tina's skilful hands, would tempt the feeble appetite
of Ermentrude when she was utterly unable to touch
the salted meats and sausages of the household.

vol. I. G

82 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE' S NEST.

In spite of all endeavours to guard the windows
and keep up the fire, the cold withered the poor
child like a fading leaf, and she needed more and
more of tenderness and amusement to distract her
attention from her ailments. Christina's resources
were unfailing. Out of the softer pine and birch
woods provided for the fire, she carved a set of
draughtsmen, and made a board by ruling squares
on the end of a settle, and painting the alternate
ones with a compound of oil and charcoal. Even
the old baron was delighted with this contrivance,
and the pleasure it gave his daughter. He remem-
bered playing at draughts in that portion of his
youth which had been a shade more polished, and
he felt as if the game were making Ermentrude
more like a lady. Christina was encouraged to
proceed with a set of chessmen, and the shaping
of their characteristic heads under her dexterous
fingers was watched by Ermentrude like something
magical. Indeed, the young lady entertained the
belief that there was no limit to her attendant's
knowledge or capacity.

Truly there was a greater brightness and clearness
beginning to dawn even upon poor little Ermen-
trude's own dull mind. She took more interest in

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 83

everything : songs were not solely lullabies, but she
cared to talk them over ; tales to which she would
once have been incapable of paying attention were
eagerly sought after; and, above all, the spiritual
vacancy that her mind had hitherto presented was
beginning to be filled up. Christina had brought
her own books — a library of extraordinary extent
for a maiden of the fifteenth century, but which she
owed to her uncle's connexion with the arts of wood-
cutting and printing. A Vulgate from Dr. Faustus's
own press, a mass book and breviary, Thomas
a Kempis's " Imitation/' and the " Nurernburg
Chronicle" all in Latin, and the poetry of the
gentle Minnesinger and bird lover, Walther von
Vogelweide, in the vernacular : these were her stock,
which Hausfrau Johanna had viewed as a foolish
encumbrance, and Hugh Sorel would never have
transported to the castle unless they had been so
well concealed in Christina's kirtles that he had
taken them for parts of her wardrobe.

Most precious were they now, when, out of the
reach of all teaching save her own, she had to infuse
into the sinking girl's mind the great mysteries of
life and death, that so she might not leave the world
without more hope or faith than her heathen fore-
g2

84 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

fathers. For that Ermentrude would live Christina
had never hoped, since that fleeting improvement
had been cut short by the fever of the wine-cup ;
the look, voice, and tone had become so completely
the same as those of Eegina Grundt's little sister
who had pined and died. She knew she could not
cure, but she could, she felt she could, comfort,
cheer, and soften, and she no longer repined at her
enforced sojourn at Adlerstein. She heartily loved
her charge, and could not bear to think how desolate
Ermentrude would be without her. And now the
poor girl had become responsive to her care. She
was infinitely softened in manner, and treated her
parents with forms of respect new to them ; she had
learnt even to thank old Ursel, dropped her im-
perious tone, and struggled with her petulance ;
and, towards her brother, the domineering uncouth
adherence was becoming real tender affection ; while
the dependent, reverent love she bestowed upon
Christina was touching and endearing in the ex-
treme.

Ereiherr von Adlerstein saw the change, and con-
gratulated himself on the effect of having a town-
bred bower woman ; nay, spoke of the advantage it
would be to his daughter, if lie could persuade

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLES NEST. 85

himself to make the submission to the Kaiser
which the late improvements decided on at the
Diet were rendering more and more inevitable.
Novj how happy would be the winner of his gentle
Ermentrude !

Freiherrinn von Adlerstein thought the alteration
the mere change from child to woman, and felt in-
sulted by the supposition that any one might not
have been proud to match with a daughter of Adler-
stein, be she what she might. As to submission to
the Kaiser, that was mere folly and weakness —
kaisers, kings, dukes, and counts had broken their
teeth against the rock of Adlerstein before now !
What had come over her husband and her son to
make them cravens ?

For Freiherr Eberhard was more strongly con-
vinced than was his father of the untenableness of
their present position. Hugh Sorel's reports of what
he heard at Ulm had shown that the league that
had been discussed at Eegensburg was far more for-
midable than anything that had ever previously
threatened Schloss Adlerstein, and that if the Graf
von Schlangenwald joined in the coalition, there
would be private malice to direct its efforts against
the . Adlerstein family. Feud-letters or challenges

86 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

had been made unlawful for ten years, and was not
Adlerstein at feud with the world ?

Nor did Eberhard look on the submission with the
sullen rage and grief that his father felt in bringing
himself to such a declension from the pride of his
ancestors. What the young baron heard upstairs
was awakening in him a sense of the poorness and
narrowness of his present life. Ermentrude never
spared him what interested her; and, partly from
her lips, partly through her appeals to her attendant,
he had learnt that life had better things to offer than
independence on these bare rocks, and that homage
might open the way to higher and worthier exploits
than preying upon overturned waggons.

Dietrich of Berne and his two ancestors, whose
lengthy legend Christina could sing in a low soft
recitative, were revelations to him of what she
meant by a true knight — the lion in war, the lamb
in peace ; the quaint oft-repeated portraits, and still
quainter cities, of the " Chronicle," with her explana-
tions and translations, opened his mind to aspirations
for intercourse with his fellows, for an honourable
name, and for esteem in its degree such as was paid
to Sir Parzival, to Karl the Great, or to Eodolf of
Hapsburgh, once a mountain lord like himself. Nay,

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 87

as Ernientrude said, stroking his cheek, and smooth-
ing the flaxen beard, that somehow had become much
less rough and tangled than it used to be, "Some
day wilt thou be another Good Ereiherr Eberhard,
whom all the country-side loved, and who gave
bread at the castle-gate to all that hungered."

Her brother believed nothing of her slow declen-
sion in strength, ascribing all the change he saw to
the bitter cold, and seeing but little even of that
alteration, though he spent many hours in her room,
holding her in his arms, amusing her, or talking to
her and to Christina. All Christina's fear of him
was gone. As long as there was no liquor in the
house, and he was his true self, she felt him to be
a kind friend, bound to her by strong sympathy in
the love and care for his sister. She could talk
almost as freely before him as when alone with her
young lady ; and as Ermentrude's religious feelings
grew stronger, and were freely expressed to him,
surely his attention was not merely kindness and
patience with the sufferer.

The girl's soul ripened rapidly under the new in-
fluences during her bodily decay ; and, as the days
lengthened, and the stern hold of winter relaxed
upon the mountains, Christina looked with strange

88 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

admiration upon the expression that had dawned
upon the features once so vacant and dull, and
listened with the more depth of reverence to the
sweet words of faith, hope, and love, because she
felt that a higher, deeper teaching than she could
give must have come to mould the spirit for the new
world to which it was hastening.

1 ' Like an army defeated,
The snow had retreated,"

out of the valley, whose rich green shone smiling
round the pool into which the Debateable Ford
spread. The waterfall had burst its icy bonds, and
dashed down with redoubled voice, roaring rather than
babbling. Blue and pink hepaticas — or, as Christina
called them, liver-krauts — had pushed up their starry
heads, and had even been gathered by Sir Eberhard,
and laid on his sister's pillow. The dark peaks of
rock came out all glistening with moisture, and the
snow only retained possession of the deep hollows
and crevices, into which, however, its retreat was far
more graceful than when, in the city, it was trodden
by horse and man, and soiled with smoke.

Christina dreaded, indeed, that the roads should
be open, but she could not love the snow ; it spoke

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S XEST. 80-

to her of dreariness, savagery, and captivity, and she
watched the dwindling stripes with satisfaction, and
hailed the fall of the petty avalanches from one
Eagle's Step to another as her forefathers might have
rejoiced in the defeat of the Frost giants.

But Ermentrnde had a love for the white sheet
that lay covering a gorge running np from the ravine.
She watched its diminution day by day with a fancy
that she was melting away with it ; and, indeed, it
was on the very day that a succession of drifting
showers had left the sheet alone, and separated it
from the masses of white above, that it first full}'
dawned upon the rest of the family that, for the little
daughter of the house, spring was only bringing
languor and sinking instead of recovery.

Then it was that Sir Eberhard first really listened
to her entreaty that she might not die without a
priest, and comforted her by passing his word to her
that, if — he would not say when — the time drew
near, he would bring her one of the priests who had
only come from St. Euprecht's cloister on great days,
by a sort of sufferance, to say mass at the Blessed
Eriedmund's hermitage chapel.

The time was slow in coming. Easter had passed
with Ermentrude far too ill for Christina to make

90 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

the effort she had intended of going to the church,
even if she could get no escort but old Ursel — the
sheet of snow had dwindled to a mere wreath — the
ford looked blue in the sunshine — the cascade tinkled
merrily down its rock — mountain primroses peeped
out, when, as Father Norbert came forth from saying
his ill-attended Pentecostal mass, and was parting with
the infirm peasant hermit, a tall figure strode up the
pass, and, as the villagers fell back to make way,
stood before the startled priest, and said, in a voice
choked with grief, " Come with me."

" Who needs me V began the astonished monk.

"Follow him not, father!" whispered the hermit.
" It is the young Freiherr. — 0 have mercy on him,
gracious sir ; he has done your noble lordships no
wrong."

" I mean him no ill," replied Eberhard, clearing
his voice with difficulty ; " I would but have him do
his office. Art thou afraid, priest?"

"Who needs my office?" demanded Father ETor-
bert. " Show me fit cause, and what should I dread ?
Wherefore dost thou seek me ?"

" For my sister," replied Eberhard, his voice
thickening again. " My little sister lies at the point
of death, and I have sworn to her that a priest she

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S XEST. 91

shall have. \Yilt thou come, or shall I drag thee
down the pass?"

" I come, I come with all my heart, sir knight/'
was the ready response. "A few moments and I
am at your bidding."

He stepped back into the hermit's cave, whence a
stair led up to the chapel. The anchorite followed
him, whispering — " Good father, escape ! There
will be full time ere he misses you. The north door
leads to the Gemsbock's Pass ; it is open now."

" AYhy should I baulk him ? Why should I deny
my office to the dying V* said JSorbert.

" Alas ! holy father, thou art new to this country,
and know'st not these men of blood ! It is a snare
to make the convent ransom thee, if not worse.
The Freilierrinn is a fiend for malice, and the Freiherr
is excommunicate."

" I know it,"my son," said ISTorbert ; " but wherefore
should their child perish unassoilzied?"

" Art coming, priest ?" shouted Eberhard, from his
stand at the mouth of the cave.

And, as Xorbert at once appeared with the pyx
and other appliances that he had gone to fetch, the
Freiherr held out his hand with an offer to "carry
his gear for him ;" and, when the monk refused,

92 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

with, an inward shudder at entrusting a sacred
charge to such unhallowed hands, replied, " You will
have work enow, for both hands ere the castle is
reached."

But Father Norbert was by birth a sturdy Switzer,
and thought little of these Swabian Alps ; and he
climbed after his guide through the most rugged
passages of Eberhard's shortest and most perpen-
dicular cut without a moment's hesitation, and with
agility worthy of a chamois. The young baron
turned for a moment, when the level of the castle
had been gained, perhaps to see whether he were
following, but at the same time came to a sudden
speechless pause.

On the white masses of vapour that floated on the
opposite side of the mountain was traced a gigantic
shadowy outline of a hermit, with head bent eagerly
forward, and arm outstretched.

The monk crossed himself. Eberhard stood still
for a moment, and then said, hoarsely, — " The Blessed
Friedmund ! He is come for her ;" then strode on
towards the postern gate, followed by Brother Nor-
bert, a good deal reassured both as to the genuine-
ness of the young baron's message and the probable
condition of the object of his journey, since the

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S XEST. 93

patron saint of her race was evidently on the watch
to speed her departing spirit.

Sir Eberhard led the way up the turret stairs to
the open door, and the monk entered the death-
chamber. The elder baron sat near the fire in the
large wooden chair, half-turned towards his daugh-
ter, as one who must needs be present, but with his
face buried in his hands, unable to endure the spec-
tacle. Nearer was the tall form of his wife, standing
near the foot of the bed, her stern, harsh features
somewhat softened by the feelings of the moment.
Ursel waited at hand, with tears running down her
furrowed cheeks.

For such as these Father Norbert was prepared;
but he little expected to meet so pure and sweet
a gaze of reverential welcome as beamed on him
from the soft dark eyes of the little white-cheeked
maiden who sat on the bed, holding the sufferer in
her arms. Still less had he anticipated the serene
blessedness that sat on the wasted features of the
dying girl, amid all the anguish of labouring breath.

She smiled a smile of joy, held up her hand, and
thanked her brother. Her father scarcely lifted his
head, her mother made a rigid curtsey, and with a
grim look of sorrow coming over her features, laid

94 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

her hand over the old Baron's shoulder. " Come
away, Herr Vater," she said ; " he is going to hear
her confession, and make her too holy for the like
of ns to touch."

The old man rose up, and stepped towards his
child. Ermentrude held out her arms to him, and
murmured —

** Father, father, pardon me ; I would have been

a better daughter if I had only known " He

gathered her in his arms ; he was quite past speak-
ing; and they only heard his heavy breathing, and
one more whisper from Ermentrude — " And oh !
father, one day wilt thou seek to be absolved ? "
Whether he answered or not they knew not ; he
only gave her repeated kisses, and laid her down on
her pillows, then rushed to the door, and the pas-
sionate sobs of the strong man's uncontrolled nature
might be heard upon the stair. The parting with
the others was not necessarily so complete, as they
were not, like him, under censure of the Church;
but Kuniguncle leant down to kiss her; and, in
return to her repetition of her entreaty for pardon,
replied, " Thou hast it, child, if it will ease thy
mind ; but it is all along of these new fancies that
ever an Adlerstein thought of pardon. There, there,

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S XEST. 95

I blame thee not, poor maid ; if thou wert to die, it
may be even best as it is. Now must I to thy
father ; he is troubled enough about this gear."

But when Eberhard moved towards his sister, she
turned to the priest, and said, imploringly, " Not far,
not far ! Oh ! let them," pointing to Eberhard and
Christina, " let them not be quite out of sight ! "

" Out of hearing is all that is needed, daughter,"
replied the priest ; and Ermentrucle looked content
as Christina moved towards the empty north turret,
where, with the door open, she was in full view,
and Eberhard followed her thither. It was indeed
fully out of ear-shot of the child's faint, gasping,
confession. Gravely and sadly both stood there.
Christina looked up the hill-side for the snow-
wreath. The May sunshine had dissolved it ; the
green pass lay sparkling without a vestige of its
white coating. Her eyes full of tears, she pointed
the spot out to Eberhard. He understood ; but,
leaning towards her, told, under his breath, of the
phantom he had seen. Her eyes expanded with awe of
the supernatural. " It was the Blessed Friedmund,"
said Eberhard. "Never hath he so greeted one of
our race since the pious Freiherrinn Hildegarde.
Maiden, hast thou brought us back a blessing ? "

96 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

" All ! well may she be blessed — well may the
saints stoop to greet her," murmured Christina,
with strangled voice, scarcely able to control her
sobs.

Father Norbert came towards them. The simple
confession had been heard, and he sought the aid
of Christina in performing the last rites of the
Church.

" Maiden," he said to her, " thou hast done a
great and blessed work, such as many a priest might
envy thee." i

Eberhard was not excluded during the final ser-
vices by which the soul was to be dismissed from
its earthly dwelling-place. True, he comprehended
little of their import, and nothing of the words,
but he gazed meekly, with uncovered head, and a
bewildered look of sadness, while Christina made her
responses and took her part with full intelligence and
deep fervour, sorrowing indeed for the companion
who had become so dear to her, but deeply thankful
for the spiritual consolation that had come at last.
Ermentrude lay calm, and, as it were, already rapt
into a higher world, lighting up at the German
portions of the service, and not wholly devoid of
comprehension of the spirit even of the Latin, as,

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 97

indeed, she had come to the border of the region
where human tongues and languages are no more.

She was all but gone when the rite of extreme
unction was completed, and they could only stand
round her, Eberhard, Christina, Ursel, and the old
baroness, who had returned again, watching the last
flutterings of the breath, the window thrown wide
open that nothing might impede the passage of the
soul to the blue vault above.

The priest spoke the beautiful commendation,
'•'Depart, 0 Christian soul." There was a faint
gesture in the midst for Christina to lift her in her
arms — a sign to bend down and kiss her brow — but
her last look was for her brother, her last murmur,
u Come after me ; be the Good Baron Ebbo."

VOL. I. H

98 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST,

CHAPTER V.

THE YOUNG FEEIHEPJt.

Ermentpxde vox Adlee stein slept with her fore-
fathers in the vaults of the hermitage chapel, and
Christina Sorel's work was done.

Surely it was time for her to return home, though
she should be more sorry to leave the mountain
castle than she could ever have believed possible.
She entreated her father to take her home, but she
received a sharp answer that she did not know what
she was talking of : the Schlangenwald Eeitern were
besetting all the roads ; and, moreover, the Ulm
burghers had taken the capture of the Constance
wine in such dudgeon that for a retainer of Acller-
stein to show himself in the streets would be an
absolute asking for the wheel.

But was there any hope for her? Could he not
take her to some nunnery midway, and let her write
to her uncle to fetch her from thence ?

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 99

He swore at woman's pertinacity, but allowed at
last that if the plan, talked of by the Barons, of
going to make their submission to the Emperor at
Linz, with a view to which all violence at the ford
had ceased, should hold good, it might be' possible
thus to drop her on their way.

With this Christina must needs content herself.
Poor child, not only had Ermentrude's death deprived
her of the sole object of her residence at Schloss
Adlerstein, but it had infinitely increased the diffi-
culties of her position. Xo one interfered with her
possession of the upper room and its turrets ; and
it was only at meal times that she was obliged to
mingle with the other inhabitants, who, for the most
part, absolutely overlooked the little shrinking pale
maiden : but with one exception, and that the most
perplexing of all. She had been on terms with
Ereiherr Eberhard that were not so easily broken
off as if she had been an old woman of Ursel's age.
All through his sister's decline she had been his
comforter, assistant, director, living in intercourse
and sympathy that ought surely to cease when she
was no longer his sister's attendant, yet which must
be more than ever missed in the full freshness of
the stroke.

H 2

100 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLES NEST.

Even on the earliest day of bereavement, a sudden
thought of Hausfrau Johanna flashed upon Christina,
and reminded her of the guard she must keep over
herself if she would return to Ulm the same modest
girl whom her aunt could acquit of all indiscretion.
Her cheeks flamed, as she sat alone, with the very
thought, and the next time she heard the well-
known tread on the stair, she fled hastily into her
own turret chamber, and shut the door. Her heart
beat fast. She could hear Sir Eberhard moving
about the room, and listened to his heavy sigh as
lie threw himself into the large chair. Presently
lie called her by name, and she felt it needful to
open her door and answer, respectfully,

" What would you, my lord ? "

" What would I ? A little peace, and heed to her
who is gone. To see my father and mother one
would think that a partridge had but flown away.
I have seen my father more sorrowful when his
dog had fallen over the abyss."

"Mayhap there is more sorrow for a brute that
cannot live again," said Christina. " Our bird has
her nest by an Altar that is lovelier and brighter
than even our Dome Kirk will ever be."

" Sit down, Christina," he said, dragging a chair

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 101

nearer the hearth. " My heart is sore, and I cannot
bear the din below. Tell me where my bird is
flown."

" Ah ! sir ; pardon me. I must to the kitchen,"
said Christina, crossing her hands over her breast,
to still her trembling heart, for she was very sorry
for his grief, but moving resolutely.

"Must? And wherefore? Thou hast nought to
do there ; speak truth ! Why not stay with me ? "
as his great light eyes opened wide.

" A burgher maid may not sit down with a noble
baron."

" The devil ! Has my mother been plaguing thee,
child?"

11 No, my lord," said Christina, " she recks not of
me ; but " — steadying her voice with great difficulty
— " it behoves me the more to be discreet."

" And you would not have me come here I " he
said, with a wistful tone of reproach.

"I have no power to forbid you; but if you do,
I must betake me to Ursel in the kitchen," said
Christina, very low, trembling and half choked.

"Among the rude wenches there!" he cried,
starting up. " Nay, nay, that shall not be ! Kather
will I go. But this is very cruel of thee, maiden,"

102 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

he added, lingering, " when I give thee my knightly
word that all should be as when she whom we both
loved was here," and his voice shook.

" It could not so be, my lord," returned Christina,
with drooping, blushing face ; " it would not be
maidenly in me. 0, my lord, you are kind and
generous, make it not hard for me to do what other
maidens less lonely have friends to do for them ! "

" Kind and generous ? " said Eberhard, leaning
over the back of the chair as if trying to begin
a fresh score. " This from you, who told me once
I was no true knight ! "

" I shall call you a true knight with all my
heart," cried Christina — the tears rushing into her
eyes, " if you will respect my weakness and lone-
liness."

He stood up again, as if to move away; then
paused, and, twisting his gold chain, said, " And
how am I ever to be what the happy one bade
me, if you will not show me how ? "

" My error would never show you the right," said
Christina, with a strong effort at firmness, and
retreating at once through the door of the staircase,
whence she made her way to the kitchen, and with
great difficulty found an excuse for her presence there.

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S XEST. 103

It had been a hard struggle with her compassion
and gratitude, and, poor little Christina felt with
dismay, with something more than these. Else why
was it that, even while principle and better sense
summoned her back to Ulm, she experienced a
deadly weariness of the city-pent air, of the grave
heavy roll of the river, nay, even of the quiet, well-
regulated household ? Why did such a marriage as
she had thought her natural destiny, with some
worthy kind-hearted brother of the guild, become so
hateful to her that she could only aspire to a convent
life ? This same burgomaster would be an estimable
man, no doubt, and those around her were ruffians,
but she felt utterly contemptuous and impatient of
him. And why was the interchange of greetings,
the few words at meals, worth all the rest of the
day beside to her ? Her own heart was the traitor,
and to her own sensations the poor little thing had,
in spirit at least, transgressed all Aunt Johanna's
precepts against young barons. She wept apart, and
resolved, and prayed, cruelly ashamed of every start
of joy or pain that the sight of Eberhard cost her.
From almost the first he had sat next her at the
single table that accommodated the whole household
at meals, and the custom continued, though on some

104 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

days lie treated her with sullen silence, which she
blamed herself for not rejoicing in, sometimes he
spoke a few friendly words ; but he observed, better
than she could have dared to expect, her test of his
true knighthood, and never again forced himself into
her apartment, though now and then he came to the
door with flowers, with mountain strawberries, and
once with two young doves. " Take them, Christina,"
he said, " they are very like yourself;" and he always
delayed so long that she was forced to be resolute,
and shut the door on him at last.

Once, when there was to be a mass at the chapel,
Hugh Sorel, between a smile and a growl, informed
his daughter that he would take her thereto. She
gladly prepared, and, bent on making herself agree-
able to her father, did not once press on him the
necessity of her return to Ulm. To her amazement
and pleasure, the young baron was at church, and
when, on the way home, he walked beside her mule,
she could see no need of sending him away.

He had been in no school of the conventionalities
of life, and, when he saw that Hugh Sorel's presence
had obtained him this favour, he wistfully asked,
" Christina, if I bring your father with me, will you
not let me in?"

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S XEST. 105

" Entreat me not, my lord/' she answered, with
fluttering breath.

She felt the more that she was right in this
decision, when she encountered her father's broad
grin of surprise and diversion, at seeing the young
baron help her to dismount. It was a look of
receiving an idea both new, comical, and flattering,
but by no means the look of a father who would
resent the indignity of attentions to his daughter
from a man whose rank formed an insuperable
barrier to marriage.

The effect was a new, urgent, and most piteous
entreaty, that he would find means of sending her
home. It brought upon her the hearing put into
words what her own feelings had long shrunk from
confessing to hersel£

" Ha ! Why, what now ? What, is the young
baron after thee ? Ha ! ha ! petticoats are few enough
up here, but he must have been ill off ere he took to
a little ghost like thee ! I saw he was moping and
doleful, but I thought it was all for his sister."

" And so it is, father."

" Tell me that, when he watches every turn of that
dark eye of thine — the only good thing thou took'st
of mine ! Thou art a witch, Stina."

106 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

" Hush, oil hush, for pity's sake, father, and let me
go home !"

u What, thou likest him not \ Tliy mind is all
for the mincing goldsmith opposite, as I ever told
thee."

" My mind is — is to return to my uncle and aunt
the true-hearted maiden they parted with," said
Christina, with clasped hands. " And oh, father, as
you were the son of a true and faithful mother, be
a father to me now ! Jeer not your motherless child,
but protect her and help her."

Hugh Sorel was touched by this appeal, and he
likewise recollected how much it was for his own
interest that his brother should be satisfied with the
care he took of his daughter. He became convinced
that the sooner she was out of the castle the better,
and at length bethought him that, among the mer-
chants who frequented the Midsummer fair at the
Blessed Friedmund's Wake, a safe escort might be
found to convey her back to Ulm.

If the truth were known, Hugh Sorel was not
devoid of a certain feeling akin to contempt, both for
his young master's taste, and for his forbearance in
not having pushed matters further with a being so
helpless, meek, and timid as Christina, more espe-

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE' S XEST. 107

cially as such slackness had not been his wont in
other cases where his fancy had been caught.

But Sorel did not understand that it was not
physical beauty that here had been the attraction,
though, to some persons, the sweet pensive eyes, the
delicate pure skin, the slight tender form, might seem
to exceed in loveliness the fully developed animal
comeliness chiefly esteemed at Adlerstein. It was
rather the strangeness of the power and purity of
this timid, fragile creature, that had struck the
young noble. With all their brutal manners, reve-
rence for a lofty female nature had been in the
German character ever since their Yelleda pro-
phesied to them, and this reverence in Eberhard
bowed at the feet of the pure gentle maiden, so
strong yet so weak, so wistful and entreating even
in her resolution, refined as a white flower on a heap
of refuse, wise and dextrous beyond his slow and
didl conception, and the first being in whom he had
ever seen piety or goodness ; and likewise with a
tender, loving spirit of consolation such as he had
both beheld and tasted by his sister's, deathbed.

There was almost a fear mingled with his reverence.
If he had been more familiar with the saints, he
would thus have regarded the holy virgin martyrs,

108 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

nay, even Our Lady herself; and lie durst not push
her so hard as to offend her, and excite the anger or
the grief that he alike dreaded. He was wretched
and forlorn without the resources he had found in
his sister's room ; the new and better cravings of his
higher nature had been excited only to remain unsup-
plied and disappointed ; and the affectionate heart in
the freshness of its sorrow yearned for the comfort that
such conversation had supplied : but the impression
that had been made on him was still such, that he
knew that to use rough means of pressing his wishes
would no more lead to his real gratification than it
would to appropriate a snow-bell by crushing it in
his gauntlet.

And it was on feeble little Christina, yielding in
heart., though not in will, that it depended to preserve
this reverence, and return unscathed from this castle,
more perilous now than ever.

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 109

CHAPTEE VI.

THE BLESSED FREIDMUND'S WAKE.

Midsummer-day arrived, and the village of Adler-
stein presented a most unusual spectacle. The wake
was the occasion of a grand fair for all the mountain
side, and it was an understood thing that the Barons,
instead of molesting the pedlars, merchants, and
others who attended it, contented themselves with
demanding a toll from every one who passed the
Kohler's hut on the one side, or the Gemshock's
Pass on the other ; and this toll, being the only coin
by which they came honestly in the course of the
year, was regarded as a certainty and highly valued.
Moreover, it was the only time that any purchases
could be made, and the flotsam of the Ford did not
always include all even of the few requirements of
the inmates of the castle ; it was the only holiday,
sacred or secular, that ever gladdened the Eagle's
Pock.

110 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

So all the inmates of the castle prepared to enjoy
themselves, except the heads of the house. The
Freiherr had never been at one of these wakes since
the first after he was excommunicated, when he
had stalked round to show his indifference to the
sentence; and the Freiherrinn snarled out such
sentences of disdain towards the concourse, that
it might be supposed that she hated the sight of
her kind; but Ursel had all the household purchases
to make, and the kitchen underlings were to take
turns to go and come, as indeed were the men-at-
arms, who were set to watch the toll-bars.

Christina had packed up a small bundle, for the
chance of being unable to return to the castle with-
out missing her escort, though she hoped that the
fair might last two days, and that she should thus
be enabled to return and bring away the rest of her
property. She was more and more resolved on
going, but her heart was less and less inclined to
departure. And bitter had been her weeping through
all the early light hours of the long morning — weep-
ing that she tried to think was all for Ermentrude ;
and ail, amid prayers she could scarce trust herself
to offer, that the generous kindly nature might yet
work free of these evil surroundings, and fulfil the

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. J 11

sister's dying wish. She should never see it; but,
when she should hear that the Debateable Ford was
the Friendly Ford, then would she know that it was
the doing of the Good Baron Ebbo. Could she
venture on telling him so 1 Or were it not better
that there were no farewell? And she wept again
that he should think her ungrateful. She could not
persuade herself to release the doves, but committed
the charge to Ursel to let them go in case she should
not return.

So tear-stained was her face, that, ashamed that it
should be seen, she wrapped it closely in her hood
and veil when she came down and joined her father.
The whole scene swam in tears before her eyes when
she saw the whole green slope from the chapel
covered with tents and booths, and swarming with
pedlars and mountaineers in their picturesque dresses.
Women and girls were exchanging the yarn of their
winter's spinning for bright handkerchiefs ; men
drove sheep, goats, or pigs to barter for knives,
spades, or weapons ; others were gazing at simple
shows — a dancing bear or ape — or clustering round
a Minnesinger ; many even then congregatin6 in
booths for the sale of beer. Further up, on the flat
space of sward above the chapel, were some la}'

112 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLES NEST.

brothers, arranging for the representation of a
mystery — a kind of entertainment which Germany
owed to the English who came to the Council of
Constance, and which the monks of St. Euprecht's
hoped might infuse some religious notions into the
wild ignorant mountaineers.

First, however, Christina gladly entered the church.
Crowded though it were, it was calmer than the busy
scene without. Faded old tapestry was decking its
walls, representing apparently some subject entirely
alien to St. John or the blessed hermit ; Christina
rather thought it was Mars and Yenus, but that was
all the same to everyone else. And there was a
terrible figure of St. John, painted life-like, with
a real hair-cloth round his loins, just opposite to
her, on the step of the Altar ; also poor Friedmund's
bones, dressed up in a new serge amice and hood ;
the stone from Nicsea was in a gilded box, ready in
due time to be kissed ; and a preaching friar (not
one of the monks of St. Euprecht's) was in the midst
of a sermon, telling how St. John presided at the
Council of Nicsea till the Emperor Maximius cut off
his head at the instance of Herodias — full justice
being done to the dancing — and that the blood was
sprinkled on this very stone, whereupon our Holy

THE DOVE IK THE EAGLE'S NEST. 113

Father the Pope decreed that whoever would kiss
the said stone, and repeat the Credo five times after-
wards, should be capable of receiving an indulgence
for 500 years : which indulgence must however be
purchased at the rate of six groschen, to be bestowed
in alms at Eome. And this inestimable benefit he,
poor Friar Peter, had come from his brotherhood of
St. Francis at Offingen solely to dispense to the poor
mountaineers.

It was disappointing to find this profane mummery
going on instead of the holy services to which Chris-
tina had looked forward for strength and comfort ;
she was far too well instructed not to be scandalized
at the profane deception which was ripening fast for
Luther, only thirty years later ; and, when the stone
was held up by the friar in one hand, the printed
briefs of indulgence in the other, she shrank back.
Her father, however, said, " Wilt have one, child ?
Five hundred years is no bad bargain."

" My uncle has small trust in indulgences," she
whispered.

"All lies, of course," quoth Hugh ; "yet they've
the "Pope's seal, and I have more than half a mind
to get one. Five hundred years is no joke, and I am

vol. I. I

114 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

sure of purgatory, since I bought this medal at the
Holy House of Loretto."

And he went forward, and invested six groschen
in one of the papers, the most religious action poor
Christina had ever seen him perform. Other pur-
chasers came forward — several of the castle knappen,
and a few peasant women who offered yarn or
cheeses as equivalents for money, but were told
with some insolence to go and sell their goods,
and bring the coin.

After a time, the friar, finding his traffic slack,
thought fit to remove, with his two lay assistants,
outside the chapel, and try the effects of an out-of-
door sermon. Hugh Sorel, who had been hitherto
rather diverted by the man's gestures and persuasions,
now decided on going out into the fair in quest of
an escort for his daughter, but as she saw Father
Norbert and another monk ascending from the stairs
leading to the hermit's cell, she begged to be allowed
to remain in the church, where she was sure to be
safe, instead of wandering about with him in the
fair.

He was glad to be unencumbered, though he
thought her taste unnatural ; and, promising to re-
turn for her when he had found an escort, he left her.

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 115

Father Xorbert had come for the very purpose
of hearing confessions, and Christina's next hour
was the most comfortable she had spent since
Ermentrude's death.

After this, however, the priests were called away,
and long, long did Christina first kneel and then sit
in the little lonely church, hearing the various sounds
without, and imagining that her father had forgotten
her, and that he and all the rest were drinking, and
then what would become of her? Why had she
quitted old Ursel's protection ?

Hours of waiting and nameless alarm must have
passed, for the sun was waxing low, when at length
she heard steps coming up the hermit's cell, and a
head arose above the pavement which she recognised
with a wild throb of joy, but, repressing her sense
of gladness, she only exclaimed, " Oh, where is my
father!"

" I have sent him to the toll at the Gemsbock's
Pass," replied Sir Eberhard, who had by this time
come up the stairs, followed by Brother Peter and
the two lay assistants. Then, as Christina turned
on him her startled terrified eyes in dismay and
reproach for such thoughtlessness, he came towards
her, and, bending his head and opening his hand, he
12

116 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S XEST.

showed on his palm two gold rings. " There, little
one/' he said ; " now shalt thou never again shut
me out."

Her senses grew dizzy. " Sir," she faintly said,
" this is no place to delude a poor maiden."

" I delude thee not. The brother here waits to
wed us."

" Impossible ! a burgher maid is not for such as
you."

u None but a burgher maid will I wed/' returned
Sir Eberhard, with all the settled resolution of habits
of command. " See, Christina, thou art sweeter and
better than any lady in the land ; thou canst make
me what she — the blessed one who lies there —
would have me. I love thee as never knight loved
lady. I love thee so that I have not spoken a word
to offend thee when my heart was bursting ; and " —
as he saw her irrepressible tears — " I think thou
lovest me a little."

" Ah ! " she gasped with a sob, " let me go."

" Thou canst not go home ; there is none here fit
to take charge of thee. Or if there were, I would
slay him rather than let thee go. No, not so," he
said, as he saw how little those words served his
cause ; " but without thee I were a mad and despe-

THE DOTE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 117

rate man. Christina, I will not answer for myself
if thou dost not leave this place my wedded
wife."

" Oh ! " implored Christina, " if you would only
betroth me, and woo me like an honourable maiden
from my home at Ulm ! "

" Betroth thee, ay, and wed thee at once," replied
Eberhard, who, all along, even while his words were
most pleading, had worn a look and manner of de-
termined authority and strength, good-natured in-
deed, but resolved. " I am not going to miss my
opportunity, or baulk the friar."

The friar, who had meantime been making a few
needful arrangements for the ceremony, advanced
towards them. He was a good-humoured, easy-
going man, who came prepared to do any office that
came in his way on such festival days at the villages
round; and peasant marriages at such times were
not uncommon. But something now staggered him,
and he said anxiously —

" This maiden looks convent-bred ! Herr Reiter,
pardon me ; but if this be the breaking of a cloister,
I can have none of it."

"No such thing," said Eberhard; "she is town-
bred, that is all."

118 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

" You would swear it, on the holy mass yonder,
both of you ? " said the friar, still suspiciously.

" Yea/' replied Eberhard, " and so dost thou,
Christina."

This was the time if ever to struggle against her
destiny. The friar would probably have listened to
her if she had made any vehement opposition to
a forced marriage, and if not, a few shrieks would
have brought perhaps Father ."Nbrbert, and certainly
the whole population ; but the horror and shame
of being found in such a situation, even more than
the probability that she might meet with vengeance
rather than protection, withheld her. Even the friar
could hardly have removed her, and this was her
only chance of safety from the Baroness's fury.
Had she hated and loathed Sir Eberhard, perhaps
she had striven harder, but his whole demeanour
constrained and quelled her, and the chief effort
she made against yielding was the reply, " I am no
cloister maid, holy father, but "

The "but" was lost in the friar's jovial speech.
" 0, then, all is well ! Take thy place, pretty one,
there, by the door, thou know'st it should be in the
porch, but — ach, I understand ! " as Eberhard quietly
drew the bolt within. " ISTo, no, little one, I have no

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 119

time for bride scruples and coyness ; I have to train
three dull-headed louts to be Shem, Ham, and Japhet
before dark. Hast confessed of late \ "

" This morning, but " said Christina, and

"This morning," to her great joy, said Eberhard,

and, in her satisfaction thereat, her second "but "

was not followed up.

The friar asked their names, and both gave the
Christian name alone ; then the brief and simple
rite was solemnized in its shortest form. Christina
had, by very force of surprise and dismay, gone
through all without signs of agitation, except the
quivering of her whole frame, and the icy coldness
of the hand, where Eberhard had to place the ring-
on each finger in turn.

But each mutual vow was a strange relief to her
long-tossed and divided mind, and it was rest indeed
to let her affection have its will, and own him indeed
as a protector to be loved instead of shunned. When
all was over, and he gathered the two little cold
hands into his large one, his arm supporting her
trembling form, she felt for the moment, poor little
thing, as if she could never be frightened again.

Parish registers were not, even had this been a
parish church, but Brother Peter asked, when he had

120 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S XEST.

concluded, " Well, my son, which of his flock am I
to report to your Pfarrer as linked together ? "

" The less your tongue wags on that matter till I
call on you, the better," was the stern reply. " Look
yon, no ill shall befall you if you are wise, but re-
member, against the day I call you to bear witness,
that you have this day wedded Baron Eberhard von
Acllerstein the younger, to Christina, the daughter
of Hugh Sorel, the Esquire of Ulm."

" Thou hast played me a trick, Sir Baron 1 " said
the friar, somewhat dismayed, but more amused,
looking up at Eberhard, who, as Christina now saw,
had divested himself of his gilt spurs, gold chain,
silvered belt and horn, and eagle's plume, so as to
have passed for a simple Lanzknecht. " I would have
had no such gear as this ! "

" So 1 supposed," said Eberhard, coolly.

" Young folks ! young folks ! " laughed the friar,
changing his tone, and holding up his finger slyly ;
" the little bird so cunningly nestled in the church to
fly out my Lady Baroness ! Well, so thou hast a
pretty, timid lambkin there, Sir Baron. Take care
you use her mildly."'

Eberhard looked into Christina's face with a smile,
that to her, at least, was answer enough ; and he

THE DOYE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 121

held out half a dozen links of his gold chain to the
friar, and tossed a coin to each of the lay brethren.

•' Not for the poor friar himself,'' explained Brother
Peter, on receiving this marriage-fee ; " it all goes to
the weal of the brotherhood."'

"As you please," said Eberhard. "Silence, that
is all ! And thy friary ? "'

" The poor house of St. Francis at Offingen for the
present, noble sir," said the priest. " There will you
hear of me, if you find me not. And now, fare thee
well, my gracious lady. I hope one day thou wilt
have more words to thank the poor brother who has
made thee a noble Baroness."

" Ah, good father, pardon my fright and confusion,"
Christina tried to murmur, but at that moment a
sudden glow and glare of light broke out on the
eastern rock, illuminating the fast darkening little
church with a flickering glare, that made her start in
terror as if the fires of heaven were threatening this
stolen marriage; but the friar and Eberhard both
exclaimed, " The Needfire alight already ! " And
she recollected how often she had seen these bonfires
on Midsummer night shining red on every hill
around Ulm. Loud shouts were greeting the up-
rising flame, and the people gathering thicker and

122 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

thicker on the slope. The friar undid the door to
hasten out into the throng, and Eberhard said he had
left his spurs and belt in the hermit's cell, and must
return thither, after which he would walk home with
his bride, moving at the same time towards the stair,
and thereby causing a sudden scuffle and fall. " So,
master hermit," quoth Eberhard, as the old man
picked himself up, looking horribly frightened ;
" that's your hermit's abstraction, is it ? No whin-
ing, old man, I am not going to hurt thee, so thou
canst hold thy tongue. Otherwise I will smoke thee
out of thy hole like a wild cat ! What, thou aiding
me with my belt, my lovely one ? Thanks ; the
snap goes too hard for thy little hands. Now, then,
the fire will light us gaily down the mountain side."

But it soon appeared that to depart was impos-
sible, unless by forcing a way through the busy
throng in the full red glare of the firelight, and they
were forced to pause at the opening of the hermit's
cave, Christina leaning on her husband's arm, and
a fold of his mantle drawn round her to guard her
from the night-breeze of the mountain, as they
waited for a quiet space in which to depart un-
noticed. It was a strange wild scene ! The fire was
on a bare flat rock, which probably had been yearly

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 123

so employed ever since the Kelts had brought from
the East the rite that they had handed on to the
Swabians — the Beltane fire, whose like was blazing
everywhere in the Alps, in the Hartz, nay, even in
England, Scotland, and on the granite points of
Ireland. Heaped up for many previous days with
faggots from the forest, then apparently inexhaustible,
the fire roared and crackled, and rose high, red and
smoky, into the air, paling the moon, and obscuring
the stars. Bound it, completely hiding the bonfire
itself, were hosts of dark figures swarming to ap-
proach it — all with a purpose. All held old shoes
or superannuated garments in their hands to feed the
flame ; for it was esteemed needful that every villager
should contribute something from his house — once,
no doubt, as an offering to Bel, but now as a mere
unmeaning observance. And shrieks of merriment
followed the contribution of each too well-known
article of rubbish that had been in reserve for the
Needfire ! Girls and boys had nuts to throw in, in
pairs, to judge by their bounces of future chances of
matrimony. Then came a shouting, tittering, and
falling back, as an old boor came forward like a
priest with something heavy and ghastly in his
arms, which was thrown on with a tremendous

124 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

shout, darkened the glow for a moment, then hissed,
cracked, and emitted a horrible odour.

It was a horse's head, the right owner of which
had been carefully kept for the occasion, though long
past work. Christina shuddered, and felt as if she
had fallen upon a Pagan ceremony ; as indeed was
true enough, only that the Adlersteiners attached no
meaning to the performance, except a vague notion
of securing good luck.

With the same idea the faggots were pulled down,
and arranged so as to form a sort of lane of fire.
Young men rushed along it, and then bounded over
the diminished pile, amid loud shouts of laughter
and either admiration or derision; and, in the
meantime, a variety of odd recusant noises, grunts,
squeaks, and lowings proceeding from the darkness
were explained to the startled little bride by her
husband to come from all the cattle of the mountain
farms around, who were to have their weal secured
by being driven through the Xeedfire.

It may well be imagined that the animals were
less convinced of the necessity of this performance
than their masters. Wonderful was the clatter and
confusion, horrible the uproar raised behind to make
the poor things proceed at all, desperate the shout

THE DOVE EN THE EAGLE'S XEST. 125

when some half-frantic creature kicked or attempted
a charge, wild the glee when a persecuted goat or
sheep took heart of grace, and flashed for one mo-
ment between the crackling, flaring, smoking walls.
When one cow or sheep off a farm went, all the
others were pretty sure to follow it, and the owner
had then only to he on the watch at the other end to
turn them Lack, with their flame-dazzled eyes, from
going unawares down the precipice, a fate from
which the passing through the fire was evidently not
supposed to insure them. The swine, those special
German delights, were of course the. most refractory
of all. Some, by dint of being pulled away from
the lane of fire, were induced to rush through it ;
but about half-way they generally made a bolt,
either sidelong through the flaming fence or back-
wards among the legs of their persecutors, who were
upset amid loud imprecations. One huge old lean
high-hacked sow, with a large family, truly feminine
in her want of presence of mind, actually charged
into the midst of the bonfire itself, scattering it to
the right and left with her snout, and emitting so
horrible a smell of singed bacon, that it might almost
be feared that some of her progeny were anticipating
the Chinese invention of roasting-pig«. However,

126 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

their proprietor, Jobst, counted them out all safe on
the other side, and there only resulted some sighs
and lamentations among the seniors, such as Hatto
and Ursel, that it boded ill to have the Needfire
trodden out by an old sow.

All the castle live-stock were undergoing the same
ceremony. Eberhard concerned himself little about
the vagaries of the sheep and pigs, and only laughed
a little as the oreat black q-oat, who had seen several
Midsummer nights, and stood on his cmard, made a
sudden short run and butted down old Hatto, then
skipped off like a chamois into the darkness, un-
heeding, the old rogue, the whispers that connected
his unlucky hue with the doings of the Walpurgis-
nacht. But when it came to the horses, Eberhard
could not well endure the sight of the endeavours
to force them, snorting, rearing, and struggling,
through anything so abhorrent to them as the hedge
of fire.

The Schneiderlein, with all the force of his power-
ful arm, had hold of Eberhard's own young white
mare, who, with ears turned back, nostrils dilated,
and wild eyes, her fore-feet firmly planted wide
apart, was using her whole strength for resistance ;
and, when a heavy blow fell on her, only plunged

THE DOTE IX THE EAGLE' S NEST. 127

backwards, and kicked without advancing. It was
more than Eberhard could endure, and Christina's
impulse was to murmur, " 0 do not let him do it ; "
but this he scarcely heard, as he exclaimed, "Wait
for me here !" and, as he stepped forward, sent his
voice before him, forbidding all blows to the mare.

The creature's extreme terror ceased at once upon
hearing his voice, and there was an instant relax-
ation of all violence of resistance as he came up to
her, took her halter from the Schneiderlein, patted
her glossy neck, and spoke to her. But the tumult
of warning voices around him assured him that it
would be a fatal thing to spare the steed the passage
through the fire, and he strove by encouragements
and caresses with voice and hand to get her forward,
leading her himself ; but the poor beast trembled so
violently, and, though making a few steps forward,
stopped again in such exceeding horror of the flame,
that Eberhard had not the heart to compel her,
turned her head away, and assured her that she
should not be further tormented.

"The gracious lordship is wrong," said public
opinion, by the voice of old Bauer Ulrich, the sacri-
ficer of the horse's head. " Heaven forfend that evil
befall him and that mare in the course of the year."

128 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

And the buzz of voices concurred in telling of the
recusant pigs who had never developed into sausages,
the sheep who had only escaped to be eaten by
wolves, the mule whose bones had been found at the
bottom of an abyss.

Old Ursel was seriously concerned, and would
have laid hold on her young master to remonstrate,
but a fresh notion had arisen — Would the gracious
Freiherr set a-rolling the wheel, which was already
being lighted in the fire, and was to conclude the
festivities by being propelled down the hill — figuring,
only that no one present knew it, the sun's declen-
sion from his solstitial height ? Eberhard made no
objection ; and Christina, in her shelter by the cave,
felt no little dismay at being left alone there, and,
moreover, had a strange, weird feeling at the wild,
uncanny ceremony he was engaged in, not knowing,
indeed, that it was sun-worship, but afraid that it
could be no other than unholy sorcery.

The wheel, flaring or reddening in all its spokes,
was raised from the bonfire, and was driven down
the smoothest piece of greensward, which formed an
inclined plane towards the stream. If its course
was smooth, and it only became extinguished by
leaping into the water, the village would flourish ;

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 129

and prosperity above all was expected if it should
spring over the narrow channel, and attempt to run
up the other side. Such things had happened in the
days of the good Freiherren Ebbo and Friedel, though
the wheel had never gone right since the present
baron had been excommunicated ; but his heir
having been twice seen at mass in this last month,
great hopes were founded upon him.

There was a shout to clear the slope. Eberhard,
in great earnest and some anxiety, accepted the
gauntlet that he was offered to protect his hand,
steadied the wheel therewith, and, with a vigorous
impulse from hand and foot, sent it bounding down
the slope, among loud cries and a general scattering
of the idlers who had crowded full into the very path
of the fiery circle, which flamed up brilliantly for
the moment as it met the current of air. But either
there was an obstacle in the way, or the young baron's
push had not been quite straight : the wheel sud-
denly swerved aside, its course swerved to the right,
maugre all the objurgations addressed to it as if it
had been a living thing, and the next moment it had
disappeared, all but a smoky, smouldering spot of
red, that told where it lay, charring and smoking on
its side, without having fulfilled a quarter of its course.

VOL. I. K

130 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S XEST.

People drew off gravely and silently, and Eberhard
himself was strangely discomfited when he came
back to the hermitage, and, wrapping Christina in
his cloak, prepared to return, so soon as the glare
of the fire should have faded from his eyesight
enough to make it safe to tread so precipitons a
path. He had indeed this day made a dangerous
venture, and both he and Christina could not but
feel disheartened by the issue of all the omens of
the year, the more because she had a vague sense
of wrong in consulting or trusting them. It seemed
to her all one frightened, uncomprehended dream
ever since her father had left her in the chapel ;
and, though conscious of her inability to have pre-
vented her marriage, yet she blamed herself, felt
despairing as she thought of the future, and, above
all, dreaded the baron and baroness and their anger.
Eberhard, after his first few words, was silent, and
seemed solely absorbed in leading her safely along
the rocky path, sometimes lifting her when he
thought her in clanger of stumbling. It was one of
the lightest, shortest nights of the year, and a young
moon added to the brightness in open places, while
in others it made the rocks and stones cast strange
elvish shadows. The distance was not entirely lost ;

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.. 131

other Beltane fires could be seen, like beacons, on

every hill, and the few lights in the castle shone out

like red fiery eyes in its heavy dark pile of building.
Before entering, Eberhard paused, pulled off his
own wedding-ring, and put it into his bosom, and

taking his bride's hand in his, did the same for
her, and bade her keep the ring till they could

wear them openly.

"Alas! then," said Christina, "you would have

this secret ? "

" Unless I would have to seek thee down the
oubliette, my little one," said Eberhard ; " or, what

might even be worse, see thee burnt on the hill-side
for bewitching me with thine arts ! No, indeed, my
darling. Were it only my father, I could make him
love thee ; but my mother — I could not trust her
where she thought the honour of our house con-
cerned. It shall not be for long. Thou know'st we
are to make peace with the Kaiser, and then will
I get me employment among Kurfurst Albrecht's
companies of troops, and then shalt thou prank it
as my Lady Freikerrinn, and teach me the ways
of cities."

" Alas ! I fear me it has been a great sin ! " sighed
the poor little wife.

k2

132 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

" For thee — thou couldst not help it," said Eber-
harcl ; " for me — who knows how many deadly ones
it may hinder ? Cheer up, little one ; no one can
harm thee while the secret is kept."

Poor Christina had no choice but submission ; but
it was a sorry bridal evening, to enter her husband's
home in shrinking terror; with the threat of the
oubliette before her, and with a sense of shame
and deception hanging upon her, making the wonted
scowl of the old baroness cut her both with remorse
and dread.

She did indeed sit beside her bridegroom at the
supper, but how little like a bride! even though
he pushed the salt-cellar, as if by accident, below
her place. She thought of her myrtle, tended in
vain at home by Barbara Schmidt ; she thought of
Ulm courtships, and how all ought to have been ;
the solemn ambassage to her uncle, the stately
negotiations ; the troth plight before the circle of
ceremonious kindred and merry maidens, of whom
she had often been one— the subsequent attentions
of the betrothed on all festival days, the piles of
linen and all plenishings accumulated since baby-
hood, and all reviewed and laid out for general
admiration (Ah ! poor Aunt Johanna still spinning

133

away to add to the many webs in her walnut
presses !) — then the grand procession to fetch home
the bride, the splendid festival with the musicians,
dishes, and guest-tables to the utmost limit that was
allowed by the city laws, and the bride's hair so
joyously covered by her matron's curch. amid the
merriment of her companion maidens.

Poor child ! After she had crept away to her own
room, glad that her father was not yet returned, she
wept bitterly over the wrong that she felt she had
done to the kind uncle and aunt, who must now
look in vain for their little Christina, and would
think her lost to them, and to all else that was
good. At least she had had the Church's blessing —
but that, strange to say, was regarded, in burgher
life before the Eeformation, as rather the ornament
of a noble marriage than as essential to the civil
contract; and a marriage by a priest was regarded
by the citizens rather as means of eluding the need
of obtaining the parents' consent, than as a more
regular and devout manner of wedding. However,
Christina felt this the one drop of peace. The
blessings and prayers were warm at her heart, and
gave her hope. And as to drops of joy, of them
there was no lack, for had not she now a right to

134 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

love Eberliard with all her heart and conscience,,
and was not it a wonderful love on his part that
had made him stoop to the little white-faced burgher
maid, despised even by her own father? 0 better
far to wear the maiden's uncovered head for him
than the myrtle wreath for any one else !

THE DOYE IN THE EAGLE' S NEST. 135

CHAPTER VII.

THE SCHNEIDERLEIN'S RETURN.

The poor little unowned bride had more to un-
dergo than her imagination had conceived at the
first moment.

When she heard that the marriage was to be a
secret, she had not understood that Eberhard was
by no means disposed to observe much more caution
than mere silence. A rough, though kindly man,
he did not thoroughly comprehend the shame and
confusion that he was bringing upon her by depart-
ing from his former demeanour. He knew that, so
enormous was the distance then supposed to exist
between the noble and the burgher, there was no
chance of any one dreaming of the true state of
the case, and that as long as Christina was not
taken for his wife, there was no personal danger for
her from his mother, who — so lax were the morals
of the German nobility with regard to all of inferior

136 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

rank — would tolerate her with complacency as his
favourite toy ; and he was taken by surprise at the
agony of grief and shame with which she slowly
comprehended his assurance that she had nothing
to fear.

There was no help for it. The oubliette would
probably be the portion of the low-born girl who
had interfered with the sixteen quarterings of the
Adlerstein shield, and poor Christina never stepped
across its trap-door without a shudder lest it should
open beneath her. And her father would probably
have been hung from the highest tower, in spite of
his shrewd care to be aware of nothing. Christina
consoled herself with the hope that he knew all
the time why he had been sent out of the way,
for, with a broad grin that had made her blush
painfully, he had said he knew she would be well
taken care of, and that he hoped she was not break-
ing her heart for want of an escort. She tried to
extort Eberhard's permission to let him at least
know how it was; but Eberhard laughed, saying
he believed the old fox knew just as much as
he chose ; and, in effect, Sorel, though now and then
gratifying his daughter's scruples, by serving as a
shield to her meetings with the young baron, never

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 137

allowed himself to hear a hint of the true state of
affairs.

Eberhard's love and reverence were undiminished,
and the time spent with him would have been per-
fectly happy could she ever have divested herself
of anxiety and alarm ; but the periods of his absence
from the castle were very terrible to her, for the
other women of the household, quick to perceive
that she no longer repelled him, had lost that awe
that had hitherto kept them at a distance from her,
and treated her with a familiarity, sometimes coarse,
sometimes spiteful, always hateful and degrading.
Even old Ursel had become half-pitying, half-
patronizing ; and the old baroness, though not molest-
ing her, took not the slightest notice of her.

This state of things lasted much longer than there
had been reason to expect at the time of the mar-
riage. The twro Freiherren then intended to set out
in a very short time to make their long talked-of
submission to the Emperor at Katisbon ; but, partly
from their German tardiness of movement, partly
from the obstinate delays interposed by the proud
old Freiherrinn, who was as averse as ever to the
measure, partly from reports that the Court was not
yet arrived at Piatisbon, the expedition was again

138 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

and again deferred, and did not actually take place
till September was far advanced.

Poor Christina would have given worlds to go
with them, and even entreated to be sent to Ulm
with an avowal of her marriage to her uncle and
aunt, but of this Eberhard would not hear. He said
the Ulmers would thus gain a hostage, and hamper
his movements ; and, if her wedding was not to be
confessed — poor child! — she could better bear to
remain where she was than to face Hausfrau Jo-
hanna. Eberhard was fully determined to enrol
himself in some troop, either Imperial, or, if not,
among the Free Companies, among whom men of
rank were often found, and he would then fetch or
send for his wife and avow her openly, so soon as
she should be out of his mother's reach. He longed
to leave her father at home, to be some protection
to her, but Hugh Sorel was so much the most intel-
ligent and skilful of the retainers as to be absolutely
indispensable to the party — he was their only scribe ;
and, moreover, his new suit of buff rendered him a
creditable member of a troop that had been very
hard to equip. It numbered about ten men-at-arms,
only three being left at home to garrison the castle —
aamely, Hatto, who was too old to take ; Hans, who

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE 's XEST. 130

had been hopelessly lame and deformed since the
old Baron had knocked him off a cliff in a passion ;
and Squinting Matz, a runaway servant, who had
murdered his master, the mayor of Strasburg, and
might be caught and put to death if any one
recognised him. If needful, the villagers could
always be called in to defend the castle : but of
this there was little or no danger — the Eagle's Steps
were defence enough in themselves, and the party
were not likely to be absent more than a week or
ten days — a grievous length of time, poor Christina
thought, as she stood straining her eyes on the top
of the watch-tower, to watch them as far as possible
along the plain. Her heart was very sad, and the
omen of the burning wheel so continually haunted
her that even in her sleep that night she saw its
brief course repeated, beheld its rapid fall and ex-
tinction, and then tracked the course of the sparks
that darted from it, one rising and gleaming high
in air till it shone like a star, another pursuing
a fitful and irregular, but still bright course amid
the dry grass on the hill-side, just as she had indeed
watched some of the sparks on that night, mind-
ing her of the words of the Allhallow-tide legend :
" Fulgebimt justi et tanquam scintilla in arundinek

140 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

discurrent" — a sentence which remained with her
when awake, and led her to seek it out in her
Latin Bible in the morning.

Eeluctantly had she gone down to the noontide
meal, feeling, though her hnshand and father were
far less of guardians than they should have been,
yet that there was absolute rest, peace, and pro-
tection in their presence compared with what it was
to be alone with Freiherrinn Kunigunde and her
rude women without them. A few sneers on her
daintiness and uselessness had led her to make an
offer of assisting in the grand chopping of sausage-
meat and preparation of winter stores, and she had
been answered with contempt that my young lord
would not have her soil her delicate hands, when
one of the maids who had been sent to fetch beer
from the cellar came back with startled looks, and
the exclamation, " There is the Schneiderlein riding
up the Eagle's Ladder upon Freiherr Ebbo's white
mare ! "

All the women sprang up together, and rushed to
the window, whence they could indeed recognise
both man and horse ; and presently it became plain
that both were stained with blood, weary, and spent ;
indeed, nothing but extreme exhaustion would have

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 141

induced the man-at-arms to trust the tired, stum-
bling horse up such a perilous path.

Loud were the exclamations, " Ah, no good could
come of not leading that mare through the Johan-
nisfeuer."

" This shameful expedition ! Only harm could
befall. This is thy doing, thou mincing city-girl."

" All was certain to go wrong when a pale mist
widow came into the place."

The angry and dismayed cries all blended them-
selves in confusion in the ears of the only silent
woman present ; the only one that sounded distinctly
on her brain was that of the last speaker, " A pale,
mist widow," as, holding herself a little in the rear
of the struggling, jostling little mob of women, who
hardly made way even for their acknowledged lady,
she followed with failing limbs the universal rush
to the entrance as soon as man and horse had
mounted the slope and were lost sight of.

A few moments more, and the throng of expectants
was at the foot of the hall steps, just as the lans-
knecht reached the arched entrance. His comrade
Hans took his bridle, and almost lifted him from
his horse ; he reeled and stumbled as, pale, battered,
and bleeding, he tried to advance to Freiherrinn

142 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

Kunigunde, and, in answer to her hasty interro-
gation, faltered out, " 111 news, gracious lady. We
have been set upon by the accursed Schlangen-
waldern, and I am the only living man left."

Christina scarce heard even these last words ;
senses and powers alike failed her, and she sank
back on the stone steps in a deathlike swoon.

"When she came to herself she was lying on her
bed, Ursel and Else, another of the women, busy
over her, and Ursel's voice was saying, " Ah, she is
coming round. Look up, sweet lady, and fear not.
You are our gracious Lady Baroness."

" Is he here ? 0, has he said so ? 0, let me see
him — Sir Eberhard," faintly cried Christina with
sobbing breath.

" Ah, no, no," said the old woman ; " but see here,"
and she lifted up Christina's powerless, bloodless
hand, and showed her the ring on the finger. Her
bosom had been evidently searched when her dress
was loosened in her swoon, and her ring found and
put in its place. "There, you can hold up your
head with the best of them ; he took care of that —
my dear young Freiherr, the boy that I nursed,"
and the old woman's burst of tears brought back
the truth to Christina's reviving senses.

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 143

" 0 tell me," she said, trying to raise herself,
<f was it indeed so ? 0 say it was not as he said ! "

" Ah, woe's me, woe's me, that it was even so,"
lamented Ursel ; " but oh, be still, look not so wild,
dear lady. The dear, true-hearted young lord, he
spent his last breath in owning you for his true
lady, and in bidding us cherish you and our young
baron that is to be. And the gracious lady below
— she owns you ; there is no fear of her now ; so
vex not yourself, dearest, most gracious lady."

Christina did not break out into the wailing and
weeping that the old nurse expected ; she was still
far too much stunned and overwhelmed, and she
entreated to be told all, lying still, but gazing at
Ursel with piteous bewildered eyes. Ursel and Else
helping one another out, tried to tell her, but they
were much confused ; all they knew was that the
party had been surprised at night in a village hostel
by the Schlangenwaldern, and all slain, though the
young baron had lived long enough to charge the
Schneiderlein with his commendation of his wife to
his mother ; but all particulars had been lost in the
general confusion.

"Olet me see the Schneiderlein," implored Christina,
by this time able to rise and cross the room to the

144 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

large carved chair ; and Ursel immediately turned
to her underling, saying, " Tell the Schneiderlein
that the gracious Lady Baroness desires his pre-
sence."

Else's wooden shoes clattered downstairs, but the
next moment she returned. "He cannot come ; he
is quite spent, and he will let no one touch his
arm till Ursel can come, not even to get off his
doublet."

" I will go to him," said Christina, and, revived
by the sense of being wanted, she moved at once
to the turret, where she kept some rag and some
ointment, which she had found needful in the latter
stages of Ermentrude's illness — indeed, household
surgery was a part of regular female education, and
Christina had had plenty of practice in helping her
charitable aunt, so that the superiority of her skill
to that of Ursel had long been avowed in the castle.
Ursel made no objection further than to look for
something that could be at once converted into a
widow's veil — being in the midst of her grief quite
alive to the need that no matronly badge should be
omitted — but nothing came to hand in time, and
Christina was descending the stairs, on her way to
the kitchen, where she found the fugitive man-at-

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 145

arms seated on a rough settle, his head and wounded
arm resting on the table, while groans of pain,
weariness, and impatience were interspersed with
imprecations on the stupid awkward girls who sur-
rounded him.

Pity and the instinct of affording relief must needs
ake the precedence even of the desire to hear of her
husband's fate ; and, as the girls hastily whispered,
" Here she is," and the Lanzknecht hastily tried to
gather himself up, and rise with tokens of respect ;
she bade him remain still, and let her see what she
could do for him. In fact, she at once perceived that
he was in no condition to give a coherent account of
anything, he was so completely worn out, and in so
much suffering. She bade at once that some water
should be heated, and some of the broth of the dinner
set on the fire ; then with the shears at her girdle,
and her soft, light fingers, she removed the torn strip
of cloth that had been wound round the arm, and cut
away the sleeve, showing the arm not broken, but
gashed at the shoulder, and thence the whole length
grazed and wounded by the descent of the sword
down to the wrist. So tender was her touch, that he
scarcely winced or moaned under her hand ; and,
when she proceeded, with Ursel's help, to bathe the
VOL. i. L

146 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

wound with the warm water, the relief was such that
the wearied man absolutely slumbered during the
process, which Christina protracted on that very
account. She then dressed and bandaged the arm,
and proceeded to skim — as no one else in the castle
would do — the basin of soup, with which she then
fed her patient as he leant back in the corner of the
settle, at first in the same somnolent, half-conscious
state in which he had been ever since the relief from
the severe pain ; but after a few spoonfuls the light
and life came back to his eye, and he broke out,
" Thanks, thanks, gracious lady ! This is the Lady
Baroness for me ! My young lord was the only wise
man ! Thanks, lady ; now am I my own man again.
It had been long ere the old Freiherrinn had clone so
much for me ! I am your man, lady, for life or
death ! " And, before she knew what he was about,
the gigantic Schneiderlein had slid down on his
knees, seized her hand, and kissed it — the first act
of homage to her rank, but most startling and dis-
tressing to her. " Nay," she faltered, " prithee do
not; thou must rest. Only if — if thou canst only
tell me if he, my own dear lord, sent me any greet-
ing, I would wait to hear the rest till thou hast
slept."

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 147

w All ! the dog of Sclilangenwald ! " was the first
answer ; then, as he continued, " You see, lady, we
had ridden merrily as far as Jacob Hurler's hostel,
the traitor," it became, plain that he meant to begin
at the beginning. She allowed Ursel to seat her on
the bench opposite to his settle, and, leaning forward,
heard his narrative like one in a dream. There, the
Schneiderlein proceeded to say, they put up for the
night, entirely unsuspicious of evil ; Jacob Midler,
who was known to himself, as well as to Sorel and to
the others, assuring them that the way was clear to
Eatisbon, and that he heard the Emperor was most
favourably disposed to any noble who would tender
his allegiance. Jacob's liquors were brought out, and
were still' in course of being enjoyed, when the house
was suddenly surrounded by an overpowering number
of the retainers of Schlangenwald, with their Count
himself at their head. He had been evidently re-
solved to prevent the timely submission of the ene-
mies of his race, and suddenly presenting himself
before the elder Baron, had challenged him to in-
stantaneous battle, claiming credit to himself for not
having surprised them when asleep. The disadvan-
tage had been scarcely less than if this had been the
case, for the Adlersteinern were all half-intoxicated,
l2

148 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

and far inferior in numbers — at least, on the showing
of the Schneiderlein — and a desperate fight had ended
by his being flung aside in a corner, bound fast by
the ancles and wrists, the only living prisoner, except
his young lord, who, having several terrible wounds,
the worst in his chest, was left unbound.

Both lay helpless, untended, and silent, while the
revel that had been so fatal to them was renewed by
their captors, who finally all sunk into a heavy sleep.
The torches were not all spent, and the moonlight
shone into* the room, when the Schneiderlein, des-
perate from the agony caused by the ligature round
his wounded arm, sat up and looked about him. A
knife thrown aside by one of the drunkards lay near
enough to be grasped by his bound hands, and he
had just reached it when Sir Eberhard made a sign
to him to put it into his hand, and therewith con-
trived to cut the rope round both hands and feet —
then pointed to the door.

There was nothing to hinder an escape ; the men
slept the sleep of the drunken ; but the Schneider-
lein, with the rough fidelity of a retainer, would have
lingered with a hope of saving his master. But
Eberhard shook his head, and signed again to escape ;
then, making him bend down close to him, he used

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 140

all his remaining power to whisper, as lie pressed his
sword into the retainer's hand, —

" Go home ; tell my mother — all the world — that
Christina Sorel is my wife, wedded on the Friedmund
Wake by Friar Peter of Offingen, and if she should
bear a child, he is my true and lawful heir. My
sword for him — my love to her. And if my mother
would not be haunted by me, let her take care of
her/'

These words were spoken with extreme difficulty,
for the nature of the wound made utterance nearly
impossible, and each broken sentence cost a terrible
effusion of blood. The final words brought on so
choking and fatal a gush that, said the Schneiderlein,
" he fell back as I tried to hold him up, and I saw
that it was all at an end, and a kind and friendly
master and lord gone from me. I laid him down,
and put his cross on his breast that I had seen him
kissing many a time that evening ; and I crossed his
hands, and wiped the blood from them and his face.
And, lady, he had put on his ring ; I trust the robber
caitiffs may have left it to him in his grave. And so
I came forth, walking soft, and opening the door in
no small dread, not of the snoring swine, but of the
dogs without. But happily they were still, and even

150 THE DOTE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

by the door I saw all our poor fellows stark and
stiff"

" My father ? " asked Christina.

" Ay, with his head cleft open by the Graf himself.
He died like a true soldier, lady, and we have lost
the best head among us in him. Well, the knave
that should have watched the horses was as drunken
as the rest of them, and I made a shift to put the
bridle on the white mare and ride off."

Such was the narrative of the Schneiderlein, and
all that was left to Christina was the picture of her
husband's dying effort to guard her, and the haunting
fancy of those long hours of speechless agony on the
floor of the hostel, and how direful must have been
his fears for her. Sad and overcome, yet not sinking
entirely while any work of comfort remained, her
heart yearned over her companion in misfortune, the
mother who had lost both husband and son ; and all
her fears of the dread Freiherrinn could not prevent
her from bending her steps, trembling and palpi-
tating as she was, towards the hall, to try whether
the daughter-in-law's right might be vouchsafed to
her, of weeping with the elder sufferer.

The Freiherrinn sat by the chimney, rocking her-
self to and fro, and holding consultation with Hatto.

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 151

She started as she saw Christina approaching, and
made a gesture of repulsion ; but, with the feeling of
being past all terror in this desolate moment, Chris-
tina stepped nearer, knelt, and, clasping her hands,
said, " Yonr pardon, lady."

" Pardon ! " returned the harsh voice, even harsher
for very grief, " thou hast naught to fear, girl. As
things stand, thou canst not have thy deserts. Dost
hear?"

" Ah, lady, it was not such pardon that I meant.
If you would let me be a daughter to you."

" A daughter ! A wood-carver's girl to be a
daughter of Adlerstein ! " half laughed the grim ba-
roness. u Come here, wench," and Christina under-
went a series of sharp searching questions on the
evidences of her marriage.

" So," ended the old lady, " since better may not
be, we must own thee for the nonce. Hark ye all,
tins is the Frau Freiherrinn, Freiherr Eberhard's
widow, to be honoured as such," she added, raising
her voice. " There, girl, thou hast what thou didst
strive for. Is not that enough ? "

" Alas ! lady," said Christina, her eyes swimming
in tears, " I would fain have striven to be a com-
forter, or to weep together."

152 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

"What! to bewitch me as thou didst my poor
son and daughter, and well-nigh my lord himself!
Girl ! Girl ! Thou know'st I cannot burn thee now :
but away with thee ; try not my patience too far."

And, more desolate than ever, the crushed and
broken-hearted Christina, a widow before she had
been owned a wife, returned to the room that was
now so full of memories as to be even more home
than Master Gottfried's gallery at Ulm.

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 153

CHAPTEK VIII.

PASSING THE OUBLIETTE.

Who can describe the dreariness of being snowed-
up all the winter with such a mother-in-law as
Freiherrinn Kunigunde ?

Yet it was well that the snow came early, for it
was the best defence of the lonely castle from any
attack on the part of the Schlangenwaldern, the
Swabian League, or the next heir, Freiherr Kasimir
von Adlerstein Wildschloss. The elder baroness had,
at least, the merit of a stout heart, and, even with
her sadly-reduced garrison, feared none of them.
She had been brought up in the faith that Adler-
stein was impregnable, and so she still believed;
and, if the disaster that had cut off her husband
and son was to happen at all, she was glad that
it had befallen before the homage had been paid.
Probably the Schlangenwald Count knew how tough
a morsel the castle was like to prove, and Wild-
schloss was serving at a distance, for nothing was

154 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

heard of either during the short interval while the
roads were still open. During this time an attempt
had been made through Father Norbert to ascertain
what had become of the corpses of the two barons
and their followers, and it had appeared that the
Count had carried them all off from the inn, no
doubt to adorn his castle with their limbs, or to
present them to the Emperor in evidence of his zeal
for order. The old baron could not indeed have
been buried in consecrated ground, nor have masses
said for him; but for the weal of her son's soul
Dame Kunigunde gave some of her few ornaments,
and Christina added her gold earrings, and all her
scanty purse, that both her husband and father
might be joined in the prayers of the Church —
trying with all her might to put confidence in Hugh
Sorel's Loretto relic, and the Indulgence he had
bought, and trusting with more consolatory thoughts
to the ever stronger dawnings of good she had
watched in her own Eberhard.

She had some consoling intercourse with the
priest while all this was pending; but throughout
the winter she was entirely cut off from every
creature save the inmates of the castle, where, as
far as the old lady was concerned, she only existed

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 155

on sufferance, and all her meekness and gentleness
could not win for her more than the barest toleration.
That Eberhard had for a few hours survived his
father, and that thus the Freiherrinn Christina was
as much the Dowager Baroness as Kunigunde her-
self, was often insisted on in the kitchen by Ursel,
Hatto, and the Schneiderlein, whom Christina had
unconsciously rendered her most devoted servant,
not only by her daily care of his wound, but by
her kind courteous words, and by her giving him
his proper name of Heinz, dropping the absurd nom
de guerre of the Schneiderlein, or little tailor, which
had been originally conferred on him in allusion to
the valiant Tailorling who boasted of having killed
seven flies at a blow, and had been carried on
chiefly because of the contradiction between such a
title and his huge brawny strength and fierce cou-
rage. Poor Eberhard, with his undaunted bravery
and free reckless goodnature, a rufhan far more by
education than by nature, had been much loved by
his followers. His widow would have reaped the
benefit of that affection even if her exceeding sweet-
ness had not gained it on her own account ; and
this giant was completely gained over to her, when,
amid all her sorrow and feebleness, she never failed

156 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

to minister to his sufferings to the utmost, while
her questions about his original home, and revival
of the name of his childhood, softened him, and
awoke in him better feelings. He would have died
to serve her, and she might have headed an oppo-
sition party in the castle, had she not been quite
indifferent to all save her grief; and, except by
sitting above the salt at the empty table, she
laid no claim to any honours or authority, and was
more seldom than ever seen beyond what was now
called her own room.

At last, when for the second time she was seeing
the snow wreaths dwindle, and the drops shine forth
in moisture again, while the mountain paths were
set free by the might of the springtide sun, she
spoke almost for the first time with authority, as
she desired Heinz to saddle her mule, and escort
her to join in the Easter mass at the Blessed Fried-
mund's Chapel. Ursel heaped up objections ; but
so urgent was Christina for confession and for mass,
that the old woman had not the heart to stop her
by a warning to the elder baroness, and took the
alternative of accompanying her. It was a glorious
sparkling Easter day, lovely blue sky above, herbage
and flowers glistening below, snow dazzling in the

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 157

hollows, peasants assembling in holiday garb, and
all rejoicing. Even the lonely widow, in her heavy
veil and black mufflings, took hope back to her
heart, and smiled when at the church door a little
child came timidly up to her with a madder-tinted
Easter egg — a gift once again like the happy home
customs of Ulm. She gave the child a kiss — she
had nothing else to give, but the sweet face sent it
away strangely glad.

The festival mass in all its exultation was not
fully over, when anxious faces began to be seen at
the door, and whisperings went round and many
passed out. Nobody at Adlerstein was particular
about silence in church, and, when the service was
not in progress, voices were not even lowered, and,
after many attempts on the part of the Schneiderlein
to attract the attention of his mistress, his voice
immediately succeeded the Ite missa est, " Gracious
lady, we must be gone. Your mule is ready. There
is a party at the Debateable Eord, whether Schlan-
genwald or Wildschloss we know not yet, but either
way you must be the first thing placed in safety."

Christina turned deadly pale. She had long been
ready to welcome death as a peaceful friend; but,
sheltered as her girlhood had been in the quiet

158 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

city, slie had never been brought in contact with
warfare, and her nervous, timid temperament made
the thought most appalling and frightful to her,
certain as she was that the old baroness would
resist to the uttermost. Father Norbert saw her
extreme terror, and, with the thought that he might
comfort and support her, perhaps mediate between
the contending parties, plead that it was holy-tide,
and. proclaim the peace of the church, or at the
worst protect the lady herself, he offered his com-
pany; but, though she thanked him, it was as if
she scarcely understood his kindness, and a shudder
passed over her whenever the serfs, hastily sum-
moned to augment the garrison, came hurrying down
the path, or turning aside into the more rugged and
shorter descents. It was strange, the good father
thought, that so timorous and fragile a being should
have her lot cast amid these rugged places and
scenes of violence, with no one to give her the care
and cherishing she so much required.

Even when she crept up the castle stairs, she
was met with an angry rebuke, not so much for the
peril she had incurred as for having taken away
the Schneiderlein, by far the most availing among
the scanty remnant of the retainers of Adlerstein.

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 159

Attempting no answer, and not even daring to ask
from what quarter came the alarm, Christina made
her way out of the turmoil to that chamber of her
own, the scene of so much fear and sorrow, and
yet of some share of peace and happiness. But
from the window, near the fast subsiding waters of
the Debateable Ford, could plainly be seen the small
troop of warriors, of whom Jobst the Kohler had
brought immediate intelligence. The sun glistened
on their armour, and a banner floated gaily on the
wind ; but they were a fearful sight to the inmates
of the lonely castle.

A stout heart was, however, Kunigunde's best
endowment ; and, with the steadiness and precision
of a general, her commands rang out, as she arranged
and armed her garrison, perfectly resolved against
any submission, and confident in the strength of her
castle ; nay, not without a hope of revenge either
against Schlangenwald or \Yildschlo3s, whom, as a
degenerate Adlerstein, she hated only less than the
slayer of her husband and son.

The afternoon of Easter day, however, passed away
without any movement on the part of the enemy,
and it was not till the following day that they
could be seen struggling through the ford, and pre-

160 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

paring to ascend the mountain. Attacks had some-
times been disconcerted by posting men in the most
dangerous passes ; but, in the lack of numbers, and
of trustworthy commanders, the Freiherrinn had
judged it wiser to trust entirely to her walls, and
keep her whole force within them.

The new comers could hardly have had any hostile
intentions, for, though well armed and accoutred,
their numbers did not exceed twenty-five. The
banner borne at their head was an azure one, with
a white eagle, and their leader could be observed
looking with amazement at the top of the watch-
tower, where the same eagle had that morni ng been
hoisted for the first time since the fall of the two
Freiherren.

So soon as the ascent had been made, the leader
wound his horn, and, before the echoes had died
away among the hills, Hatto, acting as seneschal,
was demanding his purpose.

" I am Kasimir von Adlerstein Wilclschloss," was
the reply. " I have hitherto been hindered by stress
of weather from coming to take possession of my
inheritance. Admit me, that I may arrange with
the widowed Frau Freiherrinn as to her dower and
residence."

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 161

" The widowed Frau Freiherrinn, born of Adler-
stein," returned Hatto, " thanks the Freiherr von
Adlerstein Wildschloss ; but she holds the castle
as guardian to the present head of the family, the
Freiherr von Adlerstein."

" It is false, old man," exclaimed Wildschloss ;
" the Freiherr had no other son."

" No," said Hatto, " but Freiherr Eberhard hath
left us twin heirs, our young lords, for whom we
hold this castle."

" This trifling will not serve ! " sternly spoke the
knight. " Eberhard von Adlerstein died unmarried."

" Not so/' returned Hatto, " our gracious Frau
Freiherrinn, the younger, was wedded to him at
the last Friedmund Wake, by the special blessing
of our good patron, who would not see our house
extinct."

" I must see thy lady, old man," said Sir Kasimir,
impatiently, not in the least crediting the story, and
believing his cousin Kunigunde quite capable of any
measure that could preserve to her the rule in Schloss
Adlerstein, even to erecting some passing love affair
of her son's into a marriage. And he hardly did
her injustice, for she had never made any inquiry
beyond the castle into the validity of Christinas

VOL. I. M

162 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

espousals, nor sought after the friar who had per-
formed the ceremony. She consented to an interview
with the claimant of the inheritance, and descended
to the gateway for the purpose. The court was at
its cleanest, the thawing snow having newly washed
away its impurities, and her proud figure, under her
black hood and veil, made an imposing appearance
as she stood tall and defiant in the archway.

Sir Kasimir was a handsome man of about thirty,
of partly Polish descent, and endowed with Slavonic
grace and courtesy, and he had likewise been em-
ployed in negotiations with Burgundy, and had
acquired much polish and knowledge of the world.

" Lady," he said, " I regret to disturb and intrude
on a mourning family, but I am much amazed at
the tidings I have heard; and I must pray of you
to confirm them."

* I thought they would confound you," composedly
replied Kunigunde.

" And pardon me, lady, but the Diet is very nice
in requiring full proofs. I would be glad to learn
what lady was chosen by my deceased cousin Eber-
hard."

" The lady is Christina, daughter of his esquire,
Hugh Sorel, of an honourable family at Ulm."

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 163

" Ha ! I know who and what Sorel was ! " ex-
claimed Wildschloss. " Lady cousin, thou wouldst
not stain the shield of Adler stein with owning aught
that cannot bear the examination of the Diet ! "

" Sir Kasimir," said Kunigunde, proudly, " had I
known the truth ere my son's death, I had strangled
the girl with mine own hands ! But I learnt it
only by his dying confession ; and, had she been
a beggar's child, she was his wedded wife, and her
babes are his lawful heirs."

" Knowest thou time — place — witnesses ? " in-
quired Sir Kasimir.

" The time, the Friedmuncl Wake ; the place, the
Friedmund Chapel," replied the Baroness. " Come
hither, Schneiderlein. Tell the knight thy young
lord's confession."

He bore emphatic testimony to poor Eberhard's
last words ; but as to the point of who had per-
formed the ceremony, he knew not — his mind had
not retained the name.

" I must see the Frau herself," said Wildschloss,
feeling certain that such a being as he expected in
a daughter of the dissolute lansknecht Sorel would
soon, by dexterous questioning, be made to expose
the futility of her pretensions so flagrantly that
M 2

164 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

even Kunigunde could not attempt to maintain
them.

For one moment Kunigunde hesitated, hut sud-
denly a look of malignant satisfaction crossed her
face. She spoke a few words to Squinting Matz,
and then replied that Sir Kasimir should he allowed
to satisfy himself, hut that she could admit no one
else into the castle ; her's was a widow's household,
the twins were only a few hours old, and she could
not open her gates to admit any person besides
himself.

So resolved on judging for himself was Adlerstein
\Yildschloss that all this did not stagger him ; for,
even if he had believed more than he did of the
old lady's story, there would have been no sense
of intrusion or impropriety in such a visit to the
mother. Indeed, had Christina been living in the
civilized world, her chamber would have been hung
with black cloth, black velvet would have enveloped
her up to the eyes, and the blackest of cradles
would have stood ready for her fatherless babe ;
two steps, in honour of her baronial rank, would
have led to her bed, and a beaufet with the due
baronial amount of gold and silver plate would have
held the comfits and caudle to be dispensed to all

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 165

visitors. As it was, the two steps built into the
floor of the room, and the black hood that Ursel
tied over her young mistress's head, were the only
traces that such etiquette had ever been heard of.

But when Baron Kasimir had clanked up the
turret stairs, each step bringing to her many a
memory of him who should have been there, and
when he had been led to the bedside, he was
completely taken by surprise.

Instead of the great, flat-faced, coarse comeliness
of a German wench, treated as a lady in order to
deceive him, he saw a delicate, lily-like face, white
as ivory, and the soft sweet brown eyes under their
drooping lashes, so full of innocence and sad though
thankful content, that he felt as if the inquiries he
came to make were almost sacrilege.

He had seen enough of the world to know that no
agent in a clumsy imposition would look like this
pure white creature, with her arm encircling the two
1 ittle swaddled babes, whose red faces and bald heads
alone were allowed to appear above their mummy-
like wrappings ; and lie could only make an obeisance
lower and infinitely more respectful than that with
which he had favoured the Baroness n6e, von Adler-
stein, with a few words of inquiry and apology.

166 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

But Christina had her sons' right to defend now,
and she had far more spirit to do so than ever she
had had in seeming her own position, and a delicate
rose tint came into her cheek as she said in her soft
voice, " The Baroness tells me, that you, noble sir,
would learn who wedded me to my dear and blessed
lord, Sir Eberhard. It was Friar Peter of the Fran-
ciscan brotherhood of Offingen, an agent for selling
indulgences. Two of his lay brethren were present.
My dear lord gave his own name and mine in full
after the holy rite ; the friar promising his testimony
if it were needed. He is to be found, or at least
heard of, at his own cloister ; and the hermit at the
chapel likewise beheld a part of the ceremony."

" Enough, enough, lady," replied Sir Kasimir ; " for-
give me for having forced the question upon you."

" Nay," replied Christina, with her blush deepen-
ing, " it is but just and due to us all;" and her soft
eyes had a gleam of exultation, as she looked at the
two little mummies that made up the us — " I would
have all inquiries made in full."

" They shall be made, lady, as will be needful for
the establishment of your son's right as a free baron
of the empire, but not with any doubt on my part, or
desire to controvert that right. I am fully convinced,

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 167

and only wish to serve yon and my little cousins.
AVhich of them is the head of our family ? " he added,
looking at the two absolutely undistinguishable little
chrysalises, so exactly alike that Christina herself
was obliged to look for the black ribbon, on which a
medal had been hung, round the neck of the elder.
Sir Kasimir put one knee to the ground as he kissed
the red cheek of the infant and the white hand of the
mother.

" Lady cousin," he said to Kunigunde, who had
stood by all this time with an anxious, uneasy,
scowling expression on her face, " I am satisfied. I
own this babe as the true Freiherr von Adlerstein,
and far be it from me to trouble his heritage. Eather
point out the way in which I may serve you and
him. Shall I represent all to the Emperor, and obtain
his wardship, so as to be able to protect you from any
attacks by the enemies of the house ? "

" Thanks, sir," returned the elder lady, severely,
seeing Christina's gratified, imploring face. " The
right line of Adlerstein can take care of itself with-
out greedy guardians appointed by usurpers. Our
submission has never been made, and the Emperor
cannot dispose of our wardship."

And Kunigunde looked defiant, regarding herself

168 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

and her grandson as quite as good as the Emperor,
and ready to blast her daughter-in-law with her eyes
for • murmuring gratefully and wistfully, " Thanks,
noble sir, thanks ! "

" Let me at least win a friendly right in my young
cousins," said Sir Kasimir, the more drawn by pity-
ing admiration towards their mother, as he perceived
more of the grandmother's haughty repulsiveness and
want of comprehension of the dangers of her position.
" They are not baptized? Let me become their god-
father."

Christina's face was all joy and gratitude, and
even the grandmother made no objection ; in fact, it
was the babes' only chance of a noble sponsor ; and
Father Norbert, who had already been making ready
for the baptism, was sent for from the hall. Kuni-
gunde, meantime, moved about restlessly, went half-
way clown the stairs, and held counsel with some one
there ; Ursel, likewise, bustled about, and Sir Kasimir
remained seated on the chair that had been placed
for him near Christina's bed.

She was able again to thank him, and add, " It
may be that you will have more cause than the lady
grandmother thinks to remember your offer of pro-
tection to my poor orphans. Their father and grand-

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S REST. 1G9

father were, in very deed, on their way to make
submission."

" That is well known to me," said SirKasimir. "Lady,
I will do all in my power for you. The Emperor
shall hear the state of things ; and, while no violence
is offered to travellers," he added, lowering his tone,
" I doubt not he will wait for full submission till
this young baron be of age to tender it."

" We are scarce in force to offer violence," said
Christina, sighing. " I have no power to withstand
the Lady Baroness. I am like a stranger here ; but
oh ! sir, if the Emperor and Diet will be patient and
forbearing with this desolate house, my babes, if they
live, shall strive to requite their mercy by loyalty.
And the blessing of the widow and fatherless will
fall on you, most generous knight," she added, fer-
vently, holding out her hand.

" I would I could do more for you," said the knight.
" Ask, and all I can do is at your service."

" Ah, sir," cried Christina, her eyes brightening,
" there is one most inestimable service you could
render me — to let my uncle, Master Gottfried, the
wood-carver of Ulm, know where I am, and of my
state, and of my children."

Sir Kasimir repeated the name.

170 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

" Yes/' she said. * There was my home, there
was I brought up by my dear uncle and aunt, till
my father bore me away to attend on the young
lady here. It is eighteen months since they had
any tidings from her who was as a daughter to
them."

" I will see them myself," said'Kasimir ; " I know
the name. Carved not Master Gottfried the stall-
work at Augsburg ? "

" Yes, indeed ! In chestnut leaves ! And the
misereres all with fairy tales ! " exclaimed Christina.
" 0 sir, thanks indeed ! Bear to the dear, dear uncle
and aunt their child's duteous greetings, and tell
them she loves them with all her heart, and prays
them to forgive her, and to pray for her and her
little ones ! And," she added, " my uncle may not
have learnt how his brother, my father, died by his
lord's side. Oh ! pray him, if ever he loved his little
Christina, to have masses sung for my father and my
own dear lord."

As she promised, Ursel came to make the babes
ready for their baptism, and Sir Kasimir moved away
towards the window. Ursel was looking uneasy and
dismayed, and, as she bent over her mistress, she
whispered, " Lady, the Schneiderlein sends you word

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 171

that Matz lias called him to help in removing the
props of the door you wot of when he yonder steps
across it. He would know if it be your will ? "

The oubliette ! This was Frau Kunigunde's usage
of the relative who was doing his best for the welfare
of her grandsons ! Christina's whole countenance
looked so frozen with horror, that Ursel felt as if she
had killed her on the spot; but the next moment
a flash of relief came over the pale features, and the
trembling lip commanded itself to say, " My best
thanks to good Heinz ! Say to him that I forbid it.
If he loves the life of his master's children, he will
abstain ! Tell him so. My blessings on him if this
knight leave the castle safe, Ursel." And her ter-
rified earnest eyes impelled Ursel to hasten to do
her bidding ; but whether it had been executed, there
was no knowing, for almost immediately the Frei-
herrinn and Father Norbert entered, and Ursel re-
turned with them. Nay, the message given, who
could tell if Heinz would be able to act upon it ? In
the ordinary condition of the castle, he was indeed
its most efficient inmate; Matz did not approach
him in strength, Hans was a cripple, Hatto would
be on the right side ; but Jobst the Kohler, and the
other serfs who had been called in for the defence,

172 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

were more likely to hold with the elder than the
younger lady. And Frau Kuniguncle herself, knowing
well that the five-and-twenty men outside would be
incompetent to avenge their master, confident in
her narrow-minded, ignorant pride that no one coidd
take Schloss Adlerstein, and incapable of under-
standing the changes in society that were rendering
her isolated condition untenable, was certain to scout
any representation of the dire consequences that the
crime would entail. Kasimir had no near kindred,
and private revenge was the only justice the Baroness
believed in ; she only saw in her crime the satis-
faction of an old feud, and the union of the Wild-
schloss property with the parent stem.

Seldom could such a christening have taken place
as that of which Christina's bedroom was the scene —
the mother scarcely able even to think of the holy
sacrament for the horror of knowing that the one
sponsor was already exulting in the speedy de-
struction of the other ; and, poor little feeble thing,
rallying the last remnants of her severely-tried
powers to prevent the crime at the most terrible
of risks.

p The elder babe received from his grandmother
the hereditary name of Eberhard, but Sir Kasimir

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 173

looked at the mother inquiringly, ere he gave the
other to the priest. Christina had well-nigh said,
" Oubliette/' but, recalling herself in time, she feebly
uttered the name she had longed after from the
moment she had known that two sons had been
her Easter gift, " Gottfried," after her beloved uncle.
But Kunigunde caught the sound, and exclaimed,
" No son of Adlerstein shall bear a base craftsman's
name. Call him Eacher (the avenger) ;" and in the
word there already rang a note of victory and
revenge that made Christina's blood run cold. Sir
Kasimir marked her trouble. "The lady mother
loves not the sound," he said, kindly. " Lady,
have you any other wish ? Then will I call him
Friedmund."

Christina had almost smiled. To her the omen
was of the best. Baron Friedmund had been the last
common ancestor of the two branches of the family,
the patron saint was so called, his wake was her
wedding day, the sound of the word imported peace,
and the good Barons Ebbo and Friedel had ever
been linked together lovingly by popular memory.
And so the second little baron received the name
of Friedmund, and then the Knight of Wildschloss,
perceiving, with consideration rare in a warrior, that

174 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

the mother looked worn out and feverish, at once
prepared to kiss her hand and take leave.

" One more favour, Sir Knight," she said, lifting
up her head, while a burning spot rose on either
cheek, " I beg of you to take my two babes down
— yes, both, both, in your own arms, and show
them to your men, owning them as your kinsmen
and godsons."

Sir Kasimir looked exceedingly amazed, as if he
thought the lady's senses taking leave of her, and
Dame Kunigunde broke out into declarations that
it was absurd, and she did not know what she was
talking of; but she repeated almost with passion,
"Take them, take them, you know not how much
depends on it." Ursel, with unusual readiness of
wit, signed and whispered that the young mother
must be humoured, for fear of consequences ; till
the knight, in a good-natured, confused way, sub-
mitted to receive the two little bundles in his
arms, while he gave place to Kunigunde, who hastily
stepped before him in a manner that made Christina
trust that her precaution would be effectual.

The room was reeling round with her. The agony
of those few minutes was beyond all things un-
speakable. What had seemed just before like a

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 175

certain way of saving the guest without real danger
to her children, now appeared instead the most cer-
tain destruction to all, and herself the unnatural
mother who had doomed her new-born babes for a
stranger's sake. She could not even pray ; she
would have shrieked to have them brought back,
but her voice was dead within her, her tongue clave
to the roof of her mouth, ringings in her ears
hindered her even from listening to the descending
steps. She lay as one dead, when ten minutes
afterwards the cry of one of her babes struck on
her ear, and the next moment Ursel stood beside
her, laying them down close to her, and saying
exultingly, " Safe ! safe out at the gate, and down
the hill side, and my old lady ready to gnaw off
her hands for spite ! "

176 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST,

CHAPTEK IX.

THE EAGLETS.

Christina's mental and bodily constitution had
much similarity — apparently most delicate, tender,
and timid, yet capable of a vigour, health, and
endurance that withstood shocks that might have
been fatal to many apparently stronger persons.
The events of that frightful Easter Monday morning
did indeed almost kill her; but the effects, though
severe, were not lasting ; and by the time the last
of Ermentrude's snow-wreath had vanished, she was
sunning her babes at the window, happier than she
had ever thought to be — above all, in the possession
of both the children. A nurse had been captured
for the little Baron from the village on the hill-
side ; but the woman had fretted, the child had
pined, and had been given back to his mother to
save his life : and ever since both had thriven per-
fectly under her sole care, so that there was very
nearly joy in that room.

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE*S XEST. 177

Outside it, there was more bitterness than ever.
The grandmother had softened for a few moments
at the birth of the children, with satisfaction at
obtaining twice as much as she had hoped ; but
the frustration of her vengeance upon Kasimir of
Adlerstein "Wildschloss had renewed all her hatred,
and she had no scruple in abusing " the burgher-
woman " to the whole household for her artful desire
to captivate another nobleman. She, no doubt, ex-
pected that degenerate fool of a vVildschlosser to
come wooing after her ; " if he did he should meet
his deserts." It was the favourite reproach when-
ever she chose to vent her fury on the mute, blush-
ing, weeping young widow, whose glance at her
babies was her only appeal against the cruel ac-
cusation.

On Midsummer eve, Heinz the Schneiderlein, who
had all day been taking toll from the various at-
tendants at the Friedmund Wake, came up and
knocked at the door. He had a bundle over his
shoulder and a bag in his hand, which last he
offered to her.

» The toll ! It is for the Lady Baroness."

" You are my Lady Baroness. I levy toll for this
my young lord."

VOL. I. N

178 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

" Take it to her, good Heinz, slie must have the
charge, and needless strife I will not breed."

The angry notes of Dame Kunigunde came up :
" How now, knave Schneiderlein ! Come down with
the toll instantly. It shall not be tampered with !
Down, I say, thou thief of a tailor."

" Go ; prithee go, vex her not," entreated Christina.

" Coming, lady !" shouted Heinz, and, disregarding
all further objurgations from beneath, he proceeded
to deposit his bundle, and explain that it had been
entrusted to him by a pedlar from Ulm, who would
likewise take charge of anything she might have
to send in return, and he then ran down just in
time to prevent a domiciliary visit from the old lady.

From Ulm ! The very sound was joy; and Christina
with trembling hands unfastened the cords and
stitches that secured the canvas covering, within
which lay folds on folds of linen, and in the midst
a rich silver goblet, long ago brought by her father
from Italy, a few of her own possessions, and a
letter from her uncle secured with black floss silk,
with a black seal.

She kissed it with transport, but the contents
were somewhat chilling by their grave formality.
The opening address to the "honour-worthy Lady

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 179

Baroness and love-worthy niece," conveyed to her
a doubt on good Master Gottfried's part whether
she were still truly worthy of love or honour. The
slaughter at Jacob Miiller's had been already knowD
to him, and he expressed himself as relieved, but
greatly amazed, at the information he had received
from the Baron of Adlerstein Wildschloss, who had
visited him at Ulm, after having verified what had
been alleged at Schloss Adlerstein by application
to the friar at Omngen.

Freiherr von Adlerstein Wildschloss had further
requested him to make known that, feud-briefs having
regularly passed between Schlangenwald and Adler-
stein, and the two barons not having been within the
peace of the empire, no justice could be exacted for
their deaths ; yet, in consideration of the tender age
of the present heirs, the question of forfeiture or
submission should be waived till they could act for
themselves, and Schlangenwald should be withheld
from injuring them so long as no molestation was
offered to travellers. It was plain that Sir Kasimir
had well and generously done his best to protect the
helpless twins, and he sent respectful but cordial
greetings to their mother. These, however, were far
less heeded by her than the coldness of her uncle's
n2

180 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

letter. She had drifted beyond the reckoning of her
kindred, and they were sending her her property and
bridal linen, as if they had done with her, and had
lost their child in the robber-baron's wife. Yet at
the end there was a touch of old times in offering a
blessing, should she still value it, and the hopes that
heaven and the saints would comfort her ; " for surely,
thou poor child, thou must have suffered much, and,
if thou wiliest still to write to thy city kin, thine
aunt would rejoice to hear that thou and thy babes
were in good health."

Precise grammarian and scribe as was Uncle Gott-
fried, the lapse from the formal Sie to the familiar Du
went to his niece's heart. Whenever her little ones
left her any leisure, she spent this her first wedding-
day in writing so earnest and loving a letter as, in
spite of mediaeval formality, must assure the good
burgomaster that, except in having suffered much
and loved much, his little Christina was not changed
since she had left him.

No answer could be looked for till another wake-
day ; but, when it came, it was full and loving, and
therewith were sent a few more of her favourite books,
a girdle, and a richly-scented pair of gloves, together
with two ivory boxes of comfits, and two little purple

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 181

silk, gold-edged, straight, narrow garments, and tight
round brimless lace caps, for the two little Barons.
Nor did henceforth a wake-day pass by without
bringing some such token, not only delightful as
gratifying Christina's affection by the kindness that
suggested them, but supplying absolute wants in the
dire stress of poverty at Schloss Adlerstein.

Christina durst not tell her mother-in-law of the
terms on which they were unmolested, trusting to
the scantiness of the retinue and to her own influence
with the Schneiderlein to hinder any serious violence.
Indeed, while the Count of Schlangenwald was in the
neighbourhood, his followers took care to secure all
that could be captured at the Debateable Ford, and
the broken forces of Adlerstein would have been
insane had they attempted to contend with such su-
perior numbers. That the castle remained unattached
was attributed by the elder Baroness to its own
merits ; nor did Christina undeceive her. They had
no intercourse with the outer world, except that once
a pursuivant arrived with a formal intimation from
their kinsman, the Baron of Adlerstein Wildschloss,
of his marriage with the noble Fraulein, Countess
Valeska von Trautbach, and a present of a gay dagger
for each of his godsons. Frau Kunigunde triumphed

182 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

a good deal over the notion of Christina's supposed
disappointment ; but the tidings were most welcome
to the younger lady, who trusted they would put an
end to all future taunts about Wildschloss. Alas !
the handle for abuse was too valuable to be relin-
quished.

The last silver cup the castle had possessed had to
be given as a reward to the pursuivant, and mayhap
Frau Kunigunde reckoned this as another offence of
her daughter-in-law, since, had Sir Kasimir been safe
in the oubliette, the twins might have shared his
broad lands on the Danube, instead of contributing
to the fees of his pursuivant. The cup could indeed
be ill spared. The cattle and swine, the dues of the
serfs, and the yearly toll at the wake were the sole
resources of the household; and though there was
no lack of meat, milk, and black bread, sufficient
garments could scarce be come by, with all the spin-
ning of the household, woven by the village webster,
of whose time the baronial household, by prescriptive
right, owned the lion's share.

These matters little troubled the two beings in
whom Christina's heart was wrapped up. Though
running about barefooted and bareheaded, they were
healthy, handsome, straight -limbed, noble -looking

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 183

creatures, so exactly alike, and so inseparable, that
no one except herself could tell one from the other
save by the medal of Our Lady worn by the elder,
and the little cross carved by the mother for the
younger ; indeed, at one time, the urchins themselves
would feel for cross or medal, ere naming themselves
" Ebbo," or " Friedel." They were tall for their age,
but with the slender make of their foreign ancestry ;
and, though their fair rosy complexions were bright-
ened by mountain mists and winds, their rapidly
darkening hair, and large liquid brown eyes, told of
their Italian blood. Their grandmother looked on
their colouring as a taint, and Christina herself had
hoped to see their father's simple, kindly blue eyes
revive in his boys; but she could hardly have de-
sired anything different from the dancing, kindling,
or earnest glances that used to flash from under their
long black lashes when they were nestling in her
lap, or playing by her knee, making music with their
prattle, or listening to her answers with faces alive
with intelligence. They scarcely left her time for
sorrow or regret.

They were never quarrelsome. Either from the
influence of her gentleness, or from their absolute
union, they coidd do and enjoy nothing apart, and

184 THE DOVE EN' THE EAGLE'S NEST,

would as soon have thought of their right and left
hands falling out as of Ebbo and Friedel disputing.
EbbOj however, was always the right hand. TJic
Freiherr, as he had been called from the first, had.
from the time he could sit at the table at all. been
put into the baronial chair with the eagle carved at
the back ; every member of the household, from his
grandmother downwards, placed him foremost, and
Friedel followed their example, at the less loss to
hiinself, as his hand was always in Ebbo's. and all
their doings were in common. Sometimes, however,
the mother doubted whether there would have been
this perfect absence of all contest had the medal of
the firstborn chanced to hang round Friedmmid's
neck instead of Eberhard's. At first they were en-
tirely left to her. Their grandmother heeded them
little as long as they were healthy, and evidently
regarded them more as heirs of Adlerstein than as
grandchildren: but, as they grew older, she showed
anxiety lest their mother should interfere with the
fierce lawless spirit proper to their line.

One winter day. when they were nearly six years
old, Christina, spinning at her window, had been
watching them snowballing in the castle court,
smiling and applauding every large handful held up

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLK's NEST. 185

to her, every laughing combat, every well-aimed hit,
as the hardy little fellows scattered the snow in
showers round them, raising their merry fur-capped
faces to the bright eyes that " rained influence and
judged the prize."

By and by they stood still; Ebbd — she know him
by the tossed head and commanding air — was pro-
posing what Friedel seemed to disapprove ; but, after
a short discussion, Ebbo flung away from him, and
went towards a shed where was kept a wolf-cub, re-
cently presented to the young barons by old Ulfich's
son. The whelp was so young as to be quite harmless,
but it was far from amiable ; Friedel never willingly
approached it, and the snarling and winning replies
to all advances had begun to weary and irritate Ebbo.
He dragged it out by its chain, and, tethering it to
a post, made it a mark for his snowballs, which,
kneaded hard, and delivered with hearty good-will
by his sturdy arms, made the poor little beast yelp
with pain and terror, till the more tender-hearted
Friedel threw himself on his brother to withhold
him, while Matz stood by laughing and applauding
the baron. Seeing Ebbo shake Friedel off with un-
usual petulance, and pitying the tormented animal,
Christina flung a cloak round her head and hastened

186 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

downstairs, entering the court just as the terrified
whelp had made a snap at the boy, which was re-
turned by angry, vindictive pelting, not merely with
snow, but with stones. Friedel sprang to her crying,
and her call to Ebbo made him turn, though with
fury in his face, shouting, " He would bite me ! the
evil beast ! "

" Come with me, Ebbo," she said.

" He shall suffer for it, the spiteful, ungrateful
brute ! Let me alone, mother ! " cried Ebbo, stamp-
ing on the snow, but still from habit yielding to her
hand on his shoulder.

" What now ? " demanded the old Baroness, appear-
ing on the scene. " Who is thwarting the Baron ? "
, , " She j she will not let me deal with yonder savage
whelp/' cried the boy.

" She ! Take thy way, child," said the old lady.
" Visit him well for his malice. None shall with-
stand thee here. At thy peril ! " she added, turning on
Christina. " What, art not content to have brought
base mechanical blood into a noble house ? Wouldst
make slaves and cowards of its sons ? "

" I would teach them true courage, not cruelty,"
she tried to say.

" What should such as thou know of ^ courage ?

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 187

Look here, girl : another word to daunt the spirit of
my grandsons, and I'll have thee scourged down the
mountain-side ! On ! At him, Ebbo ! That's my
gallant young knight ! Out of the way, girl, with thy
whining looks ! "What, Friedel, be a man, and aid
thy brother ! Has she made thee a puling woman
already?" And Kunigunde laid an ungentle grasp
upon Friedmund, who was clinging to his mother,
hiding Ins face in her gown. He struggled against
the clutch, and would not look up or be detached.

" Fie, poor little coward ! " taunted the old lady ;
" never heed him, Ebbo, my brave baron ! "

Cut to the heart, Christina took refuge in her
room, and gathered her Friedel to her bosom, as he
sobbed out, " Oh, mother, the poor little wolf ! Oh,
mother, are you weeping too ? The grandmother
should not so speak to the sweetest, dearest mother-
ling," he added, throwing his arms round her neck.

" Alas, Friedel, that Ebbo should learn that it is
brave to hurt the weak ! "

" It is not like Walther of Vogelwiede," said Frie-
del, whose mind had been much impressed by the
Minnesinger's bequest to the birds.

" Nor like any true Christian knight. Alas, my

188 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

poor boys, must you be taught foul cruelty, and I
too weak and cowardly to save you ? "

" That never will be," said Friedel, lifting his head
from her shoulder. " Hark ! what a howl was that ! "
" Listen not, dear child ; it does but pain thee."
" But Ebbo is not shouting. Oh, mother, he is
vexed — he is hurt ! " cried Friedel, springing from her
lap ; but, ere either could reach the window, Ebbo
had vanished from the scene. They only saw the
young wolf stretched dead on the snow, and the
same moment in burst Ebbo, and flung himself on
the floor in a passion of weeping. Stimulated by the
applause of his grandmother and of Matz, he had
furiously pelted the poor animal with all missiles that
came to hand, till a blow, either from him or Matz,
had produced such a howl and struggle of agony, and
then such terrible stillness, as had gone to the young
Baron's very heart, a heart as soft as that of his
father had been by nature. Indeed, his sobs were so
piteous that his mother was relieved to hear only,
" The wolf ! the poor wolf ! " and to find that he him-
self was unhurt ; and she was scarcely satisfied of
this when dame Kunigunde came up also alarmed,
and thus turned his grief to wrath. " As if I would
cry in that wTay for a bite ! " he said. " Go, gran-

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 189

dame ; you made me do it, the poor beast ! " with a
fresh sob.

" Ulrich shall get thee another cub, my child."

" No, no ; I never will have another cub ! Why
did you let me kill it?"

" For shame, Ebbo ! Weep for a spiteful brute !
That's no better than thy mother or Friedel."

" I love my mother ! I love Friedel ! They would
have withheld me. Go, go ; I hate you ! "

" Peace, peace, Ebbo," exclaimed his mother ; " you
know not what you say. Ask your grandmother's
pardon."

" Peace, thou fool ! " screamed the old lady. " The
Baron speaks as he will in his own castle. He is not
to be checked here, and thwarted there, and taught to
mince his words like a cap-in-hand pedlar. Pardon !
When did an Adlerstein seek pardon ? Come with
me, my baron ; I have still some honey-cakes."

" Not I," replied Ebbo ; " honey-cakes will not
cure the wolf whelp. Go : I want my mother aud
Friedel."

Alone with them his pride and passion were gone ;
but alas ! what augury for the future of her boys' was
left with the mother !

190 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

CHAPTER X.

THE EAGLE'S PREY.

It fell about the Lammas tide,
"When moor men win their hay,'

that all the serfs of Adlerstein were collected to
collect their lady's hay to be stored for the winter's
fodder of the goats, and of poor Sir Eberhard's old
white mare, the only steed as yet ridden by the
young Barons.

The boys were fourteen years old. So monotonous
was their mother's life that it was chiefly their
growth that marked the length of her residence in
the castle. Otherwise there had been no change,
except that the elder Baroness was more feeble in
her limbs, and still more irritable and excitable in
temper. There were no events, save a few hunting
adventures of the boys, or the yearly correspondence
with Ulm ; and the same life continued, of shrinking
in dread from the old lady's tyrannous dislike, and

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S XEST. 191

of the constant endeavour to infuse better principles
into the boys, without the open opposition for which
there was neither power nor strength.

The boys' love was entirely given to their mother.
Far from diminishing with their dependence on her,
it increased with the sense of protection ; and, now
that they were taller than herself, she seemed to
be cherished by them more than ever. Moreover,
she was their oracle. Quick-witted and active-
minded, loving books the more because their grand-
mother thought signing a feud-letter the utmost
literary effort becoming to a noble, they never rested
till they had acquired all that their mother could
teach them ; or, rather, they then became more
restless than ever. Long ago had her whole store
of tales and ballads become so familiar, by repeti-
tion, that the boys could correct her in the smallest
variation ; reading and writing were mastered as
for pleasure ; and the " Nuremberg Chronicle," with
its wonderful woodcuts, excited such a passion of
curiosity that they must needs conquer its Latin
and read it for themselves. This " World History,"
with Alexander and the Nine Worthies, the cities
and landscapes, and the oft-repeated portraits, was
Eberhard's study ; but Friedmund continued con-

192 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

stant to Waltlier of Vogelweide. Eberhard cared
for no character in the Vulgate so much as for
Judas the Maccabee ; but Friedmund's heart was all
for King David ; and to both lads, shut up from
companionship as they were, every acquaintance
in their books was a living being whose like they
fancied might be met beyond their mountain. And,
when they should go forth, like Dietrich of Berne,
in search of adventures, doughty deeds were chiefly
to fall to the lot of Ebbo's lance ; while Friedel was
to be their Minnesinger ; and indeed certain verses,
that he had murmured in his brother's ear, had left
no doubt in Ebbo's mind that the exploits would be
worthily sung.

The soft dreamy eye was becoming Friedel's cha-
racteristic, as fire and keenness distinguished his
brother's glance. When at rest, the twins could be
known apart by their expression, though in all other
respects they were as alike as ever ; and let Ebbo
look thoughtful or Friedel eager, and they were again
undistinguishable ; and, indeed, they were constantly
changing looks. Had not Friedel been beside him,
Ebbo would have been deemed a wondrous student
for his years ; had not Ebbo been the standard of
comparison, Friedel would have been in high repute

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 193

for spirit and enterprise and skill as a cragsman,
with the cross-bow, and in all feats of arms that
the Schneiderlein could impart. They shared all
occupations ; and it was by the merest shade that
Ebbo excelled with the weapon, and Friedel with
the book or tool. For the artist nature was in
them, not intentionally excited by their mother, but
far too strong to be easily discouraged. They had
long daily gazed at Ulm in the distance, hoping to
behold the spire completed ; and the illustrations
in their mother's books excited a strong desire to
imitate them. The floor had often been covered
with charcoal outlines even before Christina was
persuaded to impart the rules she had learnt from
her uncle ; and her carving-tools were soon seized
upon. At first they were used only upon knobs of
sticks ; but one day when the boys, roaming on
the mountain, had lost their way, and coming to the
convent had been there hospitably welcomed by Father
Norbert, they came home wild to make carvings
like what they had seen in the chapel. Jobst the
Kohler .was continually importuned for soft wood ;
the fair was ransacked for knives ; and even the old
Baroness could not find great fault with the occu-
pation, base and mechanical though it were, which
vol. i. o

194 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

disposed of the two restless spirits during the many
hours when winter storms confined them to the
castle. Paide as was their work, the constant ob-
servation and choice of subjects were an unsuspected
training and softening. It was not in vain that they
lived in the glorious mountain fastness, and saw the
sun descend in his majesty, dyeing the masses of
rock with purple and crimson; not in vain that
they beheld peak and ravine clothed in purest
snow, flushed with rosy light at morn and eve, or
contrasted with the purple blue of the sky ; or that
they stood marvelling at ice caverns with gigantic
crystal pendants shining with the most magical pure
depths of sapphire and emerald, " as if," said Friedel,
" winter kept in his service all the jewel-forging
dwarfs of the motherling's tales." And, when the snow
melted and the buds returned, the ivy spray, the
smiling saxifrage, the purple gentian bell, the feathery
rowan leaf, the symmetrical lady's mantle, were
hailed and loved first as models, then for themselves.
One regret their mother had, almost amounting
to shame. Every virtuous person believed in the
efficacy of the rod, and, maugre her own docility,
she had been chastised with it almost as a religious
duty; but her sons had never felt the weight of a

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 195

blow, except once when their grandmother caught
them carving a border of eagles and doves round
the hall table, and then Ebbo had returned the
blow with all his might. As to herself, if she ever
worked herself up to attempt chastisement, the Ba-
roness was sure to fall upon her for insulting the
noble birth of her sons, and thus gave them a triumph
far worse for them than impunity. In truth, the
boys had their own way, or rather the Baron had
his way, and his way was Baron Friedmund's. Poor,
bare, and scanty as were all the surroundings of
their life, everything was done to feed their arro-
gance, with only one influence to counteract their
education in pride and violence — a mother's influ-
ence, indeed, but her authority was studiously taken
from her, and her position set at nought, with no
power save what she might derive from their love
and involuntary honour, and the sight of the pain
caused her by their wrong-doings.

And so the summer's hay-harvest was come. Pea-
sants clambered into the green nooks between the
rocks, to cut down with hook or knife the flowery
grass, for there was no space for the sweep of a
scythe. The best crop was on the bank of the
Braunwasser, by the Debateable Ford, but this was
o2

196 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

cut and carried on the backs of the serfs, much
earlier than the mountain grass, and never without
much vigilance against the Schlangenwalclern ; but
this year the Count was absent at his Styrian castle,
and little had been seen or heard of his people.

The full muster of serfs appeared, for Frau Kuni-
<?unde admitted of no excuses, and the sole absentee
was a widow who lived on the ledge of the mountain
next above that on which the castle stood. Her son
reported her to be very ill, and with tears in his
eyes entreated Baron Friedel to obtain leave for
him to return to her, since she was quite alone in
her solitary hut, with no one even to give her a
drink of water. Friedel rushed with the entreaty
to his grandmother, but she laughed it to scorn.
Lazy Koppel only wanted an excuse, or, if not, the
woman was old and useless, and men could not
be spared. «,

"Ah! good grandame," said Friedel, "his father
died with ours."

" The more honour for him ! The more he is
bound to work for us. Off, Junker, make no
loiterers."

Grieved and discomfited, Friedel betook himself
to his mother and brother.

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S XEST. 197

" Foolish lad not to have come to me ! " said
the young Baron. " Where is he ? I '11 send him
at once."

But Christina interposed an offer to go and take
Koppel's place beside his mother, and her skill was
so much prized over all the mountain-side, that the
alternative was gratefully accepted, and she was
escorted up the steep path by her two boys to the
hovel, where she spent the day in attendance on
the sick woman.

Evening came on, the patient was better, but
Koppel did not return, nor did the young Barons
come to fetch their mother home. The last sunbeams
were dying off the mountain-tops, and, beginning to
suspect something amiss, she at length set off, and
half way down met Koppel, who replied to her
question, " Ah, then, the gracious lady has not heard
of our luck. Excellent booty, and two prisoners !
The young Baron has been a hero indeed, and has
won himself a knightly steed." And, on her further
interrogation, he added, that an unusually rich but
small company had been reported by Jobst the
Kohler to be on the way to the ford, where he had
skilfully prepared a stumbling-block. The gracious
Baroness had caused Hatto to jodel all the hay-

198 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

makers together, and they had fallen on the travellers
by the straight path down the crag. " Ach ! did not
the young Baron spring like a young genisbock ?
And in midstream down came their pack-horses and
their wares ! Some of them took to flight, but, pfui,
there were enough for my young lord to show his
mettle upon. Such a prize the saints have not sent
since the old Baron's time."

Christina pursued her walk in dismay at this new
beginning of freebooting in its worst form, over-
throwing all her hopes. The best thing that could
happen would be the immediate interference of the
Swabian League, while her sons were too young to
be personally held guilty. Yet this might involve
ruin and confiscation ; and, apart from all conse-
quences, she bitterly grieved that the stain of
robbery should have fallen on her hitherto innocent
sons.

Every peasant she met greeted her with praises
of their young lord, and, when she mounted the
hall-steps, she found the floor strewn with bales
of goods.

" Mother," cried Ebbo, flying up to her, " have you
heard ? I have a horse ! a spirited bay, a knightly
charger, and Friedel is to ride him by turns with me.

199

Where is Eriedel? And, mother, Heinz said I struck
as good a stroke as any of them, and I have a sword
for Friedel now. Why does he not come? And,
motherling, this is for you, a gown of velvet, a
real black velvet, that will make you fairer than our
Lady at the Convent. Come to the window and see
it, mother dear."

The boy was so joyously excited that she could
hardly withstand his delight, but she did not move.

" Don't you like the velvet ?" he continued. " We
always said that, the first prize we won, the mother-
ling should wear velvet. Do but look at it."

" Woe is me, my Ebbo ! " she sighed, bending to
kiss his brow.

He understood her at once, coloured, and spoke
hastily and in defiance. u It was in the river, mother,
the horses fell ; it is our right."

" Fairly, Ebbo ? " she asked in a low voice.

" Nay, mother, if Jobst did hide a branch in mid-
stream, it was no doing of mine ; and the horses fell.
The Schlangenwaldern don't even wait to let them
fall. We cannot live, if we are to be so nice and
dainty."

" Ah ! my son, I thought not to hear you call
mercy and honesty mere niceness."

200 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

" What do I hear ? " exclaimed Frau Kunigunde,
entering from the storeroom, where she had been
disposing of some spices, a much esteemed com-
modity. " Are yon chiding and daunting this boy,
as you have done with the other ? "

" My mother may speak to me ! " cried Ebbo,
hotly, turning round.

" And quench thy spirit with whining fooleries !
Take the Baron's bounty, woman, and vex him not
after his first knightly exploit."

" Heaven knows, and Ebbo knows," said the
trembling Christina, " that, were it a knightly ex-
ploit, I were the first to exult."

" Thou ! thou craftsman's girl ! dost presume to
call in question the knightly deeds of a noble house !
There ! " cried the furious Baroness, striking her face.
" Now ! dare to be insolent again." Her hand was
uplifted for another blow, when it was grasped by
Eberhard, and, the next moment, he likewise held
the other hand, with youthful strength far exceeding
hers. She had often struck his mother before, but
not in his presence, and the greatness of the shock
seemed to make him cool and absolutely dignified.

"Be still, grandame," he said. "No, mother, I
am not hurting her," and indeed the surprise seemed

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 201

to have taken away her rage and volubility, and
unresistingly she allowed him to seat her in a chair.
Still holding her arm, he made his clear boyish voice
resound through the hall, saying, " Eetainers all,
know that, as I am your lord and master, so is my
honoured mother lady of the castle, and she is never
to be gainsayed, let her say or do what she will."

" You are right, Herr Ereiherr," said Heinz. " The
Erau Christina is our gracious and beloved dame.
Long live the Freiherrinn Christina ! " And the
voices of almost all the serfs present mingled in the
cry.

" And hear you all," continued Eberhard, " she
shall rule all, and never be trampled on more. Gran-
dame, you understand ? "

The old woman seemed confounded, and cowered
in her chair without speaking. Christina, almost
dismayed by this silence, would have suggested to
Ebbo to say something kind or consoling; but at
that moment she was struck with alarm by his
renewed inquiry for his brother.

" Friedel ! Was not he with thee ? "

" No ; I never saw him ! "

Ebbo flew up the stairs, and shouted for his brother;
then, coming down, gave orders for the men to go out

202 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

on the mountain-side, and search and jo-del. He was
hurrying with them, but his mother caught his arm.
" O Ebbo, how can I let you go ? It is dark, and the
crags are so perilous ! "

" Mother, I cannot stay ! " and the boy flung his
arms round her neck, and whispered in her ear,
" Eriedel said it would be a treacherous attack, and
I called him a craven. Oh, mother, we never parted
thus before ! He went up the hill-side. Oh, where
is he?"

Infected by the boy's despairing voice, yet relieved
that Friedel at least had withstood the temptation,
Christina still held Ebbo's hand, and descended the
steps with him. The clear blue sky was fast showing
the stars, and into the evening stillness echoed the
loud wide jodeln, cast back from the other side of the
ravine. Ebbo tried to raise his voice, but broke down
in the shout, and, choked with agitation, said, " Let
me go, mother. None know his haunts as I do ! "

" Hark ! " she said, only grasping him tighter.

Thinner, shriller, clearer came a far-away cry from
the heights, and Ebbo thrilled from head to foot, then
sent up another pealing mountain shout, responded
to by a jodel so pitched as to be plainly not an echo.
" Towards the Red Eyrie," said Hans.

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 203

■ He will have been to the Ptarmigan's Pool," said
Ebbo, sending up his voice again, in hopes that the
answer would sound less distant ; but, instead of this,
its intonations conveyed, to these adepts in mountain
language, that Friedel stood in need of help.

u Depend upon it," said the startled Ebbo, " that
he has got up amongst those rocks where the dead
chamois rolled down last summer;" then, as Christina
uttered a faint cry of terror, Heinz added, a Fear not,
lady, those are not the jodeln of one who has met
with a hurt. Baron Friedel has the sense to be
patient rather than risk his bones if he cannot
move safely in the dark."

" Up after him ! " said Ebbo, emitting a variety of
shouts intimating speedy aid, and receiving a halloo
in reply that reassured even his mother. Equipped
with a rope and sundry torches of pinewood, Heinz
and two of the serfs were speedily ready, and Christina
implored her son to let her come so far as where she
should not impede the others. He gave her his arm,
and Heinz held his torch so as to guide her up a
winding path, not in itself very steep, but which she
could never have climbed had daylight shewn her
what it overhung. Guided by the constant exchange
of jodeln, they reached a height where the wind blew

204 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

cold and wild, and Ebbo pointed to an intensely-
black shadow overhung by a peak rising like the
gable of a house into the sky. "Yonder lies the
tarn," he said. " Don't stir. This way lies the cliff.
Fried — mund ! " exchanging the jodel for the name.

" Here ! — this way ! Under the Eed Eyrie," called
back the wanderer; and steering their course round
the rocks above the pool, the rescuers made their
way towards the base of the peak, which was in fact
the summit of the mountain, the top of the Eagle's
Ladder, the highest step of which they had attained.
The peak towered over them, and beneath, the castle
lights seemed as if it would be easy to let a stone fall
straight down on them.

Eriedel's cry seemed to come from under their
feet. " I am here ! I am safe ; only it grew so dark
that I durst not climb up or down."

The Schneiderlein explained that he would lower
down a rope, which, when fastened round Friedel's
waist, would enable him to climb safely up ; and,
after a breathless space, the torchlight shone upon
the longed-for face, and Eriedel springing on the
path, cried, " The mother ! — and here ! "

" 0 Friedel, where have you been ? What is this
in your arms ? "

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S XEST. 205

He showed them the innocent face of a little
white kid.

" Whence is it, Friedel ? "

He pointed to the peak, saying, " I was lying on
my back by the tarn, when my lady eagle came
sailing overhead, so low that I could see this poor
little thing, and hear it bleat."

" Thou hast been to the Eyrie — the inaccessible
Eyrie ! " exclaimed Ebbo, in amazement.

" That's a mistake. It is not hard after the first,'1
said Friedel. * I only waited to watch the old birds
out again."

" Eobbed the eagles ! And the young ones ? "

" Well," said Friedmund, as if half ashamed, " they
were twin eaglets, and their mother had left them,
and I felt as though I could not harm them ; so I
only bore off their provisions, and stuck some feathers
in my cap. But by that time the sun was down, and
soon I could not see my footing ; and, when I found
that I had missed the path, I thought I had best nestle
in the nook where I was, and wait for day. I grieved
for my mother's fear ; but oh, to see her here ! "

" Ah, Friedel ! didst do it to prove my words
false ? " interposed Ebbo, eagerly.

" What words ? "

206 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

" Thou knowest. Make me not speak them again."
" Oh, those ! " said Friedel, only now recalling
them. " No, verily ; they were but a moment's anger.
I wanted to save the kid. I think it is old mother
Eika's white kid. But oh, motherling ! I grieve to
have thus frightened you."

Not a single word passed between them upon
Ebbo's exploits. Whether Friedel had seen all from
the heights, or whether he intuitively perceived that
his brother preferred silence, he held his peace, and
both were solely occupied in assisting their mother
down the pass, the difficulties of which were far more
felt now than in the excitement of the ascent ; only
when they were near home, and the boys were walk-
ing in the darkness with arms round one another's
necks, Christina heard Friedel say low and rather
sadly, " I think I shall be a priest, Ebbo."
To which Ebbo only answered, " Pfui ! "
Christina understood that Friedmund meant that
robbery must be a severance between the brothers.
Alas ! had the moment come when their paths must
diverge ? Could Ebbo's step not be redeemed ?

Ursel reported that Dame Kunigunde had scarcely
spoken again, but had retired, like one stunned, into
her bed. Friedel was half asleep after the exertions

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 207

of the day ; Ebbo did not speak, and both soon be-
took themselves to their little turret chamber within
their mother's.

Christina prayed long that night, her heart full of
dread of the consequence of this transgression. Ru-
mours of freebooting castles destroyed by the Swabian
League had reached her every wake day, and, if this
outrage were once known, the sufferance that left
Adlerstein unmolested must be over. There was
hope, indeed, in the weakness and uncertainty of the
Government ; but present safety would in reality be
the ruin of Ebbo, since he would be encouraged to
persist in the career of violence now unhappily begun.
She knew not what to ask, save that her sons might
be shielded from evil, and might fulfil that promise
of her dream, the star in heaven, the light on earth.
And for the present ! — the good God guide her and
her sons through the difficult morrow, and turn the
heart of the unhappy old woman below !

When, exhausted with weeping and watching; she
rose from her knees, she stole softly into her sons'
turret for a last look at them. Generally they were
so much alike in their sleep that even she was at
fault between them ; but that night there was no
doubt. Friedel, pale after the day's hunger and

208 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE' S NEST.

fatigue, slept with relaxed features in the most com-
plete calm ; but though Ebbo's eyes were closed,
there was no repose in his face — his hair was tossed,
his colour flushed, his brow contracted, the arm flung
across his brother had none of the ease of sleep. She
doubted whether he were not awake ; but, knowing
that he would not brook any endeavour to force con-
fidence he did not offer, she merely hung over them
both, murmured a prayer and blessing, and left them.

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 209

CHAPTEE XL

THE CHOICE IN LIFE.

" Friedel, wake !

" Is it day ? " said Friedel, slowly wakening, and
crossing himself as he opened his eyes. " Surely the
sun is not up ? "

" We must be before the sun ! " said Ebbo, who
was on his feet, beginning to dress himself. " Hush,
and come ! Do not wake the mother. It must be ere
she or aught else be astir ! Thy prayers — I tell thee
this is a work as good as prayer."

Half awake, and entirely bewildered, Friedel dipped
his finger in the pearl mussel shell of holy water
over their bed, and crossed his own brow and his
brother's ; then, carrying their shoes, they crossed
their mother's chamber, and crept downstairs. Ebbo
muttered to his brother, " Stand thou still there, and
pray the saints to keep her asleep ; " and then, with
bare feet, moved noiselessly behind the wooden par-
tition that shut off his m?andmother's box-bedstead

VOL. I. P

' 210 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

from the rest of the hall. She lay asleep with open
mouth, snoring loudly, and on her pillow lay the
bunch of castle keys, that was always carried to her
at night. It was a moment of peril wdien Ebbo
touched it; but he had nerved himself to be both
steady and dexterous, and he secured it without a
jingle, and then, without entering the hall, descended
into a passage lit by a rough opening cut in the rock.
Eriedel, who began to comprehend, followed him
close and joyfully, and at the first door he fitted in,
and with some difficulty turned, a key, and pushed
open the door of a vault, where morning light, stream-
ing through the grated window, showed two captives,
who had started to their feet, and now stood regard-
ing the pair in the doorway as if they thought their
dreams were multiplying the young baron who had
led the attack.

" Signori " began the principal of the two ;

but Ebbo spoke.

" Sir, you have been brought here by a mistake in
the absence of my mother, the lady of the castle. If
you will follow me, I will restore all that is within
my reach, and put you on your way."

The merchant's knowledge of German was small,
but the purport of the words was plain, and he gladly

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 211

left the damp, chilly vault. Ebbo pointed to the
bales that strewed the hall. " Take all that can be
carried/' he said. " Here is your sword, and your
purse," he said, for these had been given to him in
the moment of victory. " I will bring out your horse
and lead you to the pass/'

" Give him food," whispered Frieclel ; but the mer-
chant was too anxious to have any appetite. Only
he faltered in broken German a proposal to pay his
respects to the Signora Castellana, to whom he owed
so much.

" No ! Dormit in lecto" said Ebbo, with a sudden
inspiration caught from the Latinized sound of some
of the Italian words, but colouring desperately as he
spoke.

The Latin proved most serviceable, and the mer-
chant understood that his property was restored, and
made all speed to gather it together, and transport it
to the stable. One or two of his beasts of burden
had been lost in the fray, and there were more
packages than could well be carried by the mer-
chant, his servant, and his horse. Ebbo gave the aid
of the old white mare — now very white indeed — and
in truth the boys pitied the merchant's fine young
bay for being put to base trading uses, and were
p2

212 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

rather shocked to hear that it had been taken in
payment for a knight's branched velvet gown, and
would be sold again at Ulm.

" What a poor coxcomb of a knight ! " said they to
one another, as they patted the creature's neck with
such fervent admiration that the merchant longed to
present it to them, when he saw that the old white
mare was the sole steed they possessed, and watched
their tender guidance both of her and of the bay up
the rocky path so familiar to them.

" But ah, signorini miei, I am an infelice, infelicis-
simo, ever persecuted by le Fate."

" By whom ? 'A count like Schlangenwald ?" asked
Ebbo.

" Das Schicksal" whispered Friedel.

" Three long miserable years did I spend as a
captive among the Moors, having lost all, my ships
and all I had, and being forced to row their galleys,
gli scomunicati."

" Galleys ! " exclaimed Ebbo ; " there are some pic-
tured in our World History before Carthage. Would
that I could see one."

" The signorino would soon have seen his fill, were
he between the decks, chained to the bench for weeks
together, without ceasing to row for twenty-four hours

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 213

together, with a renegade standing over to lash us,
or to put a morsel into our mouths if we were
fainting."

" The dogs ! Do they thus use Christian men ? "
cried Friedel.

" Si, si — ja wohl. There were a good fourscore of
us, and among them a Tedesco, a good man and true,
from whom I learnt la lingua low!'

" Our tongue ! — from whom ? " asked one twin of
the other.

" A Tedesco, a fellow-countryman of sue eccelle7ize"

" Deutscher ! " cried both boys, turning in horror,
" our Germans so treated by the pagan villains ? "

" Yea, truly, signorini miei. This fellow-captive of
mine was a cavaliere in his own land, but he had
been betrayed and sold by his enemies, and he
mourned piteously for la sjposa sua — his bride, as
they say here. A goodly man and a tall, piteously
cramped in the narrow deck, I grieved to leave him
there when the good confratemita at Genoa paid my
ransom. Having learnt to speak il Tedesco, and being
no longer able to fit out a vessel, I made my venture
beyond the Alps ; but, alas ! till this moment fortune
has still been adverse. My mules died of the toil of
crossing the mountains; and, when with reduced

214 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

baggage I came to the river beneatli there — when my
horses fell and my servants fled, and the peasants
came down with their hayforks — I thought myself in
hands no better than those of the Moors themselves."

" It was wrongly done," said Ebbo, in an honest,
open tone, though blushing. " I have indeed a right
to what may be stranded on the bank, but never more
shall foul means be employed for the overthrow."

The boys had by this time led the traveller through
the Gemsbock's Pass, within sight of the convent.
" There," said Ebbo, " will they give you harbourage,
food, a guide, and a beast to carry the rest of your
goods. We are now upon convent land, and none
will dare to touch your bales ; so I will unload old
Schimmel."

" Ah, signorino, if I might offer any token of gra-
titude "

* Nay," said Ebbo, with boyish lordliness, " make
me not a spoiler."

" If the signorini should ever come to Genoa,"
continued the trader, " and would honour Gian Bat-
tista dei Battiste with a call, his whole house would
be at their feet."

" Thanks ; I would that we could see strange
lands ! " said Ebbo. " But come, Friedel, the sun is

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S XEST. 215

high, and I locked them all into the castle to make
matters safe."

" May the liberated captive know the name of his
deliverers, that he may commend it to the saints ? "
asked the merchant.

" I am Eberhard, Freiherr von Adlerstein, and this
is Freiherr Friedmund, my brother. Farewell, sir."

u Strange," muttered the merchant, as he watched
the two boys turn clown the pass, " strange how like
one barbarous name is to another. Eberardo ! That
was what we called il Tedesco, and, when he once
told me his family name, it ended in stino ; but all
these foreign names sound alike. Let us speed on,
lest these accursed peasants should wake, and be
beyond the control of the signorino."

" Ah ! " sighed Ebbo, as soon as he had hurried out
of reach of the temptation, " small use in being a
baron if one is to be no better mounted ! n

" Thou art glad to have let that fair creature go
free, though," said Friedel.

" Nay, my mother's eyes would let me have no rest

in keeping him. Otherwise Talk not to me of

gladness, Friedel ! Thou shouldst know better. How
is one to be a knight with nothing to ride but a beast
old enough to be his grandmother ? "

216 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

" Knighthood of the heart may be content to go
afoot," said Friedel. " 0 Ebbo, what a brother thou
art ! How happy the mother will be ! "

" Pfui, Friedel ; what boots heart without spur ?
I am sick of being mewed up here within these
walls of rock ! No sport, not even with falling on a
traveller. I am worse off than ever were my fore-
fathers!"

" But how is it ? I cannot understand," asked
Friedel. What has changed thy mind ? "

" Thou, and the mother, and, more than all, the
grandame. Listen, Friedel : when thou earnest up,
in all the whirl of eagerness and glad preparation,
with thy grave face and murmur that Jobst had put
forked stakes in the stream, it was past man's en-
durance to be baulked of the fray. Thou hast for-
gotten what I said to thee then, good Friedel ? "

" Long since. No doubt I thrust in vexatiously."

* Not so," said Ebbo ; " and I saw thou hadst
reason, for the stakes were most maliciously planted,
with long branches hid by the current; but the
fellows were showing fight, and I could not stay to
think then, or I should have seemed to fear them !
I can tell you we made them run ! But I never
meant the grandmother to put yon poor fellow in the

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 217

dungeon, and use him worse than a dog. I wot that
he was my captive, and none of hers'. And then came
the mother ; and oh, Friedel, she looked as if I were
slaying her when she saw the spoil ; and, ere I had
made her see right and reason, the old lady came
swooping down in full malice and spite, and actually
came to blows. She struck the motherling — struck
her on the face, Friedel ! "

" I fear me it has so been before," said Friedel,
sadly.

" Never will it be so again," said Ebbo, standing
still. " I took the old hag by the hands, and told her
she had ruled long enough ! My father's wife is as
good a lady of the castle as my grandfather's, and
I myself am lord thereof ; and, since my Lady Kuni-
gunde chooses to cross me and beat my mother about
this capture, why she has seen the last of it, and ma}'
learn who is master, and who is mistress ! "

" 0 Ebbo ! I would I had seen it ! But was not
she outrageous ? "Was not the mother shrinking and
ready to give back all her claims at once ? "

" Perhaps she would have been, but just then she
found thou wast not with me, and I found thou wast
not with her, and we thought of nought else. But
thou must stand by me, Friedel, and help to keep

218 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

the grandmother in her place, and the mother in
hers."

" If the mother will be kept," said Friedel. " I
fear me she will only plead to be left to the gran-
dame's treatment, as before."

" Never, Friedel ! I will never see her so used
again. I released this man solely to show that she
is to rule here. — Yes, I know all about freebooting
being a deadly sin, and moreover that it will bring
the League about our ears; and it was a cowardly
trick of Jobst to put those branches in the stream.
Did I not go over it last night till my brain was
dizzy ? But still, it is but living and dying like our
fathers, and I hate tameness or dullness, and it is like
a fool to go back from what one has once begun."

" No ; it is like a brave man, when one has begun
wrong," said Friedel.

" But then I thought of the grandame triumphing
over the gentle mother — and I know the mother
wept over her beads half the night. She shall find
she has had her own way for once this morning."

Friedel was silent for a few moments, then said,
" Let me tell thee what I saw yesterday, Ebbo."

" So," answered the other brother.

" I liked not to vex my mother by my tidings, so

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 219

I climbed up to the tarn. There is something always
healing in that spot, is it not so, Ebbo ? When the
grandmother has been raving" (hitherto Friedel's
worst grievance) " it is like getting up nearer the
quiet sky in the stillness there, when the sky seems
to have come down into the deep blue water, and all
is so still, so wondrous still and calm. I wonder if,
when we see the great Dome Kirk itself, it will give
one's spirit wings, as does the gazing up from the
Ptarmigan's Pool."

" Thou minnesinger, was it the blue sky thou hadst
to tell me of?"

" "No, brother, it was ere I reached it that I saw
this sight. I had scaled the peak where grows the
stunted rowan, and I sat down to look down on the
other side of the gorge. It was clear where I sat,
but the ravine was filled with clouds, and upon
them "

" The shape of the blessed Friedmund, thy patron V

" Our patron," said Friedel ; " I saw him, a giant
form in gown and hood, traced in grey shadow upon
the dazzling white cloud ; and oh, Ebbo ! he was
struggling with a thinner, darker, wilder shape bear-
ing a club. He strove to withhold it ; his gestures
threatened and warned ! I watched like one spell-

220 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

bound, for it was to me as the guardian spirit of our
race striving for thee with the enemy."

"How did it end?"

" The cloud darkened, and swallowed them ; nor
should I have known the issue, if suddenly, on the
very cloud where the strife had been, there had not
beamed forth a rainbow — not a common rainbow,
Ebbo, but a perfect ring, a soft-glancing, many-tinted
crown of victory. Then I knew the saint had won,
and that thou wouldst win."

" I ! What, not thyself — his own namesake ? "

" I thought, Ebbo, if the fight went very hard —
nay, if for a time the grandame led thee her way —
that belike I might serve thee best by giving up all,
and praying for thee in the hermit's cave, or as a
monk."

" Thou ! — thou, my other self ! Aid -me by bur-
rowing in a hole like a rat ! What foolery wilt say
next ? No, no, Friedel, strike by my side, and I will
strike with thee ; pray by my side, and I will pray
with thee ; but if thou takest none of the strokes,
then will I none of the prayers ! "

" Ebbo, thou knowst not what thou sayst."

" No one knows better ! See, Friedel, wouldst thou
have me all that the old Adlersteinen were, and

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 221

worse too ? then wilt thou leave me and hide thine
head in some priestly cowl. Maybe thou thinkest
to pray my soul into safety at the last moment as a
favour to thine own abundant sanctity ; but I tell
thee, Friedel, that's no manly way to salvation. If
thou follow'st that track, I'll take care to get past the
border-line within which prayer can help."

Friedel crossed himself, and uttered an imploring
exclamation of horror at these wild words.

" Stay," said Ebbo ; " I said not I meant any such
thing — so long as thou wilt be with me. My purpose
is to be a good man and true, a guard to the weak, a
defence against the Turk, a good lord to my vassals,
and, if it may not be otherwise, I will take my oath
to the Kaiser, and keep it. Is that enough for thee,
Friedel, or wouldst thou see me a monk at once ? "

" 0 Ebbo, this is what we ever planned. I only
dreamed of the other when — when thou didst seem
to be on the other track."

" Well, what can I do more than turn back ? I'll
get absolution on Sunday, and tell Father Norbert
that I will do any penance he pleases; and warn
Jobst that, if he sets any more traps in the river,
I will drown him there next ! Only get this priestly
fancy away, Friedel, once and for ever ! "

222 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

" Never, never could I think of what would sever
us," cried Friedel, " save — when — " he added, hesi-
tating, unwilling to harp on the former string. Ebbo
broke in imperiously, —

" Friedmund von Adlerstein, give me thy solemn
word that I never again hear of this freak of turning-
priest or hermit. — What ! art slow to speak ? Thinkest
me too bad for thee ? "

" No, Ebbo. Heaven knows thou art stronger,
more resolute than I. I am more likely to be too
bad for thee. But so long as we can be true, faithful,.
God-fearing Junkern together, Heaven forbid that we
should part ! "

" It is our bond ! " said Ebbo ; " nought shall
part us."

" Nought but death," said Friedmund, solemnly.

" For my part," said Ebbo, with perfect seriousness,
" I do not believe that one of us can live or die with-
out the other. But, hark ! there's an outcry at the
castle ! They have found out that they are locked
in ! Ha ! ho ! hilloa, Hatto, how like you playing
prisoner % "

Ebbo would have amused himself with the dismay
of his garrison a little longer, had not Friedel re-
minded him that their mother might be suffering for

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 223

their delay, and this suggestion made him march in
hastily. He found her standing drooping under the
pitiless storm which Frau Kunigunde was pouring
out at the highest pitch of her cracked, trembling
voice, one hand uplifted and clenched, the other
grasping the hack of a chair, while her whole frame
shook with rage too mighty for her strength.

" Grandame," said Ebbo, striding up to the scene
of action, " cease. Eemember my words yester-
eve."

" She has stolen the keys ! She has tampered with
the servanda ! She has released the prisoner — thy
prisoner, Ebbo ! She has cheated us as she did with
Wildschloss ! False burgherinn ! I trow she wanted
another suitor ! Bane — pest of Adlerstein ! "

Friedmnnd threw a supporting arm round his
mother, but Ebbo confronted the old lady. * Grand-
mother," he said, " I freed the captive. I stole the
keys — I and Eriedel ! Xo one else knew my pur-
pose. He was my captive, and I released him because
he was foully taken. I have chosen my lot in life,"
he added ; and, standing in the middle of the hall, he
took off his cap, and spoke gravely : — " I will not be
a treacherous robber-outlaw, but, so help me God, a
faithful, loyal, godly nobleman."

224 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

His mother and Friedel breathed an " Amen " with
all their hearts ; and he continued, —

" And thou, grandame, peace ! Such reverence
shalt thou have as befits my father's mother ; but
henceforth mine own lady-mother is the mistress of
this castle, and whoever speaks a rude word to her
offends the Freiherr von Adlerstein."

That last day's work had made a great step in
Ebbo's life, and there he stood, grave and firm, ready
for the assault ; for, in effect, he and all besides
expected that the old lady would fly at him or at his
mother like a wild cat, as she would assuredly have
done in a like case a year earlier ; but she took them
all by surprise by collapsing into her chair and sob-
bing piteously. Ebbo, much distressed, tried to make
her understand that she was to have all care and
honour; but she muttered something about ingrati-
tude, and continued to exhaust herself with weeping,
spurning away all who approached her ; and thence-
forth she lived in a gloomy, sullen acquiescence in
her deposition.

Christina inclined to the opinion that she must
have had some slight stroke in the night, for she was
never the same woman again ; her vigour had passed
away, and she would sit spinning, or rocking herself

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 225

in her chair, scarcely alive to what passed, or scolding
and fretting like a shadow of her old violence. No-
thing pleased her but the attentions of her grandsons,
and happily she soon ceased to know them apart,
and gave Ebbo credit for all that was done for her by
Eriedel, whose separate existence she seemed to have
forgotten.

As long as her old spirit remained she would not
suffer the approach of her daughter-in-law, and Chris-
tina could only make suggestions for her comfort
to be acted on by Ursel; and though the reins of
government fast dropped from the aged hands, they
were but gradually and cautiously assumed by the
younger Baroness.

Only Else remained of the rude, demoralized girls
whom she had found in the castle, and their successors,
though dull and uncouth, were meek and manage-
able. The men of the castle had all, except Matz,
been always devoted to the Frau Christina, and Matz,
to her great relief, ran away so soon as he found that
decency and honesty were to be the rule. Old Hatto,
humpbacked Hans, and Heinz the Schneiderlein, were
the whole male establishment, and had at least the
merit of attachment to herself and her sons ; and in
time there was a shade of greater civilization about

VOL. I. Q

226 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

the castle, though impeded both by dire poverty and
the doggeduess of the old retainers. At least the
court was cleared of the swine, and, within doors, the
table was spread with dainty linen out of the parcels
from Ulm, and the meals served with orderliness
that annoyed the boys at first, but soon became a
subject of pride and pleasure.

Frau Kunigunde lingered long, with increasing
infirmities. After the winter day, when, running-
down at a sudden noise, Friedel picked her up from
the hearthstone, scorched, bruised, almost senseless,
she accepted Christina's care with nothing worse
than a snarl, and gradually seemed to forget the iden-
tity of her nurse with the interloping burgher girl.
Thanks or courtesy had been no part of her nature,
least of all towards her own sex, and she did little
but grumble, fret, and revile her attendant ; but she
soon depended so much on Christina's care, that it
was hardly possible to leave her. At her best and
strongest, her talk was maundering abuse of her son's
low-born wife ; but at times her wanderings showed
black gulfs of iniquity and coarseness of soul that
would make the gentle listener tremble, and be
thankful that her sons were out of hearing. And
thus did Christina von Adlerstein requite fifteen
years of persecution.

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 227

The old lady's first failure had been in the summer
of 1488 ; it was the Advent season of 1489, when
the snow was at the deepest, and the frost at the
hardest, that the two hardy mountaineer grandsons
fetched over the pass Father Norbert, and a still
sturdier, stronger monk, to the dying woman.

" Are we in time, mother ? " asked Ebbo, from the
door of the upper chamber, where the Adler steins
began and ended life, shaking the snow from his
mufnings. Buddy with exertion in the sharp wind,
what a contrast he was to all within the room !

" Who is that ? " said a thin, feeble voice.

" It is Ebbo. It is the Baron," said Christina.
" Come in, Ebbo. She is somewhat revived."

" Will she be able to speak to the priest ? " asked
Ebbo.

" Priest ! " feebly screamed the old woman. " No
priest for me ! My lord died unshriven, unassoilzied.
Where he is, there will I be. Let a priest approach
me at his peril ! "

Stony insensibility ensued ; nor did she speak
again, though life lasted many hours longer. The
priests did their office; for, impenitent as the life
and frantic as the words had been, the opinions of
the time deemed that their rites might yet give the
Q2

228 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

departing soul a chance, though the body was un-
conscious.

When all was over, snow was again falling, shifting
and drifting, so that it was impossible to leave the
castle, and the two monks were kept there for a full
fortnight, during which Christmas solemnities were
observed in the chapel, for the first time since the
days of Friedmund the Good. The corpse of Kuni-
gunde, preserved — we must say the word — salted,
was placed in a coffin, and laid in that chapel to
await the melting of the snows, when the vault at
the Hermitage could be opened. And this could not
be effected till Easter had nearly come round again,
and it was within a week of their sixteenth birthday
that the two young Barons stood together at the
coffin's head, serious indeed, but more with the
thought of life than of death.

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 229

CHAPTER XII.

BACK TO THE DOVECOTE.

For the first time in her residence at Adlerstein, now
full half her life, the Freiherrinn Christina ventured
to send a messenger to Ulm, namely, a lay brother of
the convent of St. Ruprecht, who undertook to convey
to Master Gottfried Sorel her letter, informing him
of the death of her mother-in-law, and requesting
him to send the same tidings to the Freiherr von
Adlerstein Wildschloss, the kinsman and godfather
of her sons.

She was used to wait fifty-two weeks for answers
to her letters, and was amazed when, at the end of
three, two stout serving-men were guided by Jobst
up the pass ; but her heart warmed to their flat caps
and round jerkins, they looked so like home. They
bore a letter of invitation to her and her sons to
come at once to her uncle's house. The King of the
Romans, and perhaps the Emperor, were to come to
the city early in the summer, and there could be no

230 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

better opportunity of presenting the young Barons
to their sovereign. Sir Kasimir of Adlerstein Wild-
schloss would meet them there for the purpose, and
would obtain their admission to the League, in which
all Swabian nobles had bound themselves to put
down robbery and oppression, and outside which
there was nothing but outlawry and danger.

" So must it be ? " said Ebbo, between his teeth, as
he leant moodily against the wall, while his mother
was gone to attend to the fare to be set before the
messengers.

" What! art not glad to take wing at last?" ex-
claimed Friedel, cut short in an exclamation of
delight.

" Take wing, forsooth ! To be guest of a greasy
burgher, and call cousin with him ! Fear not, Friedel ;
I'll not vex the motherling. Heaven knows she has
had pain, grief, and subjection enough in her lifetime,
and I would not hinder her visit to her home ; but
I would she could go alone, nor make us show, our
poverty to the swollen city folk, and listen to their
endearments. I charge thee, Friedel, do as I do ; be
not too familiar with them. Could we but strain an
ankle over the crag "

" Nay, she would stay to nurse us," said Friedel,

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 231

laughing ; " besides, thou art needed for the matter of
homage."

" Look, Friedel," said Ebbo, sinking his voice, " I
shall not lightly yield my freedom to king or kaisar.
Maybe, there is no help for it ; but it irks me to
think that I should be the last Lord of Adlerstein to
whom the title of Freiherr is not a mockery. Why
dost bend thy brow, brother? what art thinking of?"

" Only a saying in my mother's book, that well-
ordered service is true freedom," said Friedel. " And
methinks there will be freedom in rushing at last
into the great far-off ! " — the boy's eye expanded and
glistened with eagerness. " Here are we prisoners —
to ourselves, if you like — but prisoners still, pent up
in the rocks, seeing no one, hearing scarce an echo
from the knightly or the poet world, nor from all
the wonders that pass. And the world has a history
going on still, like the ' Chronicle.' Oh, Ebbo, think
of being in the midst of life, with lance and sword,
and seeing the Kaisar — the Kaisar of the holy Eoman
Empire ! "

" With lance and sword, well and good ; but would
it were not at the cost of liberty 1 "

However, Ebbo forbore to damp his mother's joy,
save by the one warning — " Understand, mother, that

232 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

I will not be pledged to anything. I will not bend
to tbe yoke ere I have seen and judged for myself."

The manly sound of the words gave a sweet sense
of exultation to the mother, even while she dreaded
the proud spirit, and whispered, " God direct thee,
my son."

Certainly Ebbo, hitherto the most impetuous and
least thoughtful of the two lads, had a gravity and
seriousness about him, that, but for his naturally
sweet temper, would have seemed sullen. His aspira-
tions for adventure had hitherto been more vehement
than Friedel's ; but, when the time seemed at hand,
his regrets at what he might have to yield over-
powered his hopes of the future. The fierce haugh-
tiness of the old Adlersteins could not brook the
descent from the crag, even while the keen, clear
burgher wit that Ebbo inherited from the other side of
the house taught him that the position was untenable,
and that his isolated glory was but a poor mean
thing after all. And the struggle made him sad and
moody.

Eriedel, less proud, and with nothing to yield, was
open to blithe anticipations of what Iris fancy pic-
tured as the home of all the beauty, sacred or ro-
mantic, that he had glimpsed at through his mother.

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 233

Beligion, poetry, learning, art, refinement, had all
come to him through her ; and though he had a soul
that dreamt and soared in the lonely grandeur of the
mountain heights, it craved further aliment for its
yearnings for completeness and perfection. Long ago
had Friedel come to the verge of such attainments as
he could work out of his present materials, and keen
had been his ardour for the means of progress,
though only the mountain tarn had ever been witness
to the full outpouring of the longings with which
he gazed upon the dim, distant city like a land of
enchantment.

The journey was to be at once, so as to profit by
the escort of Master Sorel's men. Means of transport
were scanty, but Ebbo did not choose that the mes-
sengers should report the need, and bring back a
bevy of animals at the burgher's expense ; so the
mother was mounted on the old white mare, and her
sons and Heinz trusted to their feet. By setting out
early on a May morning, the journey could be per-
formed ere night, and the twilight would find them
in the domains of the free city, where their small
numbers would be of no importance. As to their
appearance, the mother wore a black woollen gown
and mantle, and a black silk hood tied under her

234 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

chin, and sitting loosely round the stiff frame of her
white cap — a nun-like garb, save for the soft brown
hair, parted over her brow, and more visible than she
sometimes thought correct, but her sons would not
let her wear it out of sight.

The brothers had piece by piece surveyed the
solitary suit of armour remaining in the castle ; but,
though it might serve for defence, it could not be
made fit for display, and they must needs be con-
tented with blue cloth, spun, woven, dyed, fashioned,
and sewn at home, chiefly by their mother, and by
her embroidered on the breast with the white eagle
of Adlerstein. Short blue cloaks and caps of the
same, with an eagle plume in each, and leggings
neatly fashioned of deerskin, completed their equip-
ments. Ebbo wore his father's sword, Frieclel had
merely a dagger and crossbow. There was not a
gold chain, not a brooch, not an approach to an
ornament among the three, except the medal that
had always distinguished Ebbo, and the coral rosary
at Christina's girdle. Her own trinkets had gone in
masses for the souls of her father and husband ; and
though a few costly jewels had been found in Frau
Kunigunde's hoards, the mode of their acquisition
was so doubtful, that it had seemed fittest to be-

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 235

stow them in alms and masses for the good of her
soul.

" What ornament, what glory could any one desire
better than two such sons?" thought Christina, as
for the first time for eighteen years she crossed the
wild ravine where her father had led her, a trembling
little captive, longing for wings like a dove's to flutter
home again. Who would then have predicted that
she should descend after so long and weary a time,
and with a gallant boy on either side of her, eager to
aid her every step, and reassure her at each giddy
pass, all joy and hope before her and them ? Yet she
was not without some dread and misgiving, as she
watched her elder son, always attentive to her, but
unwontedly silent, with a stern gravity on his young
brow, a proud sadness on his lip. And when he had
come to the Debateable Ford, and was about to pass
the boundaries of his own lands, he turned and gazed
back on the castle and mountain with a silent but
passionate ardour, as though he felt himself doing
them a wrong by perilling their independence.

The sun had lately set, and the moon was silvering
the Danube, when the travellers came full in view of
the imperial free city, girt in with mighty walls and
towers— the vine-clad hill dominated by its crowning

236 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

church ; the irregular outlines of the unfinished spire
of the cathedral traced in mysterious dark lacework
against the pearly sky; the lofty steeple-like gate-
tower majestically guarding the bridge. Christina
clasped her hands in thankfulness, as at the familiar
face of a friend ; Friedel glowed like a minstrel in-
troduced to his fair dame, long wooed at a distance ;
Ebbo could not but exclaim, " Yea, truly, a great city
is a solemn and a glorious sight ! "

The gates were closed, and the serving-men had to
parley at the barbican ere the heavy door was opened
to admit the party to the bridge, between deep bat-
tlemented stone walls, with here and there loopholes,
showing the shimmering of the river beneath. The
slow, tired tread of the old mare sounded hollow ;
the river rushed below with the full swell of evening
loudness ; a deep-toned convent-bell tolled gravely
through the stillness, while, between its reverbera-
tions, clear, distinct notes of joyous music were borne
on the summer wind, and a nightingale sung in one
of the gardens that bordered the banks.

" Mother, it is all that I dreamt ! " breathlessly
murmured Friedel, as they halted under the dark
arch of the great gateway tower.

Not, however, in Friedel's dreams had been the

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S XEST. 237

hearty voice that proceeded from the lighted guard-
room in the thickness of the gateway. " Freiherrinn
von Adlerstein ! Is it she ? Then must I greet my
old playmate ! " And the captain of the watch ap-
peared among upraised lanterns and torches that
showed a broad, smooth, plump face beneath a plain
steel helmet.

" Welcome, gracious lady, welcome to your old
city. What ! do you not remember Lippus Grundt,
your poor Valentine \ "

" Master Philip Grundt ! " exclaimed Christina,
amazed at the breadth of visage and person ; " and
how fares it with my good Eegina ? "

" Excellent well, good lady. She manages her
trade and house as well as the good man Bartolaus
Fleischer himself. Blithe will she be to show you
her goodly ten, as I shall my eight," he continued,
walking by her side : " and Barbara — you remember
Barbara Schmidt, lady "

" My dear Barbara ? — That do I indeed ! Is she
your wife ? "

" Ay, truly, lady," he answered, in an odd sort of
apologetic tone ; " you see, you returned not, and the
housefathers, they would have it so — and Barbara is
a good housewife."

238 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

" Truly clo I rejoice I" said Christina, wishing she
could convey to him how welcome he had been to
marry any one he liked, as far as she was concerned
— he, in whom her fears of mincing goldsmiths had
always taken form — then signing with her hand, " I
have my sons likewise to show her."

" Ah, on foot ! " muttered Schmidt, as a not well-
conceived apology for not having saluted the young
gentlemen. " I greet you well, sirs," with a bow,
most haughtily returned by Ebbo, who was heartily
wishing himself on his mountain. " Two lusty, well-
grown Junkern indeed, to whom my Martin will be
proud to show the humours of Ulm. A fair good
night, lady ! You will find the old folks right
cheery."

Well did Christina know the turn down the street,
darkened by the overhanging brows of the tall houses,
but each lower window laughing with the glow of
light within that threw out the heavy mullions and
the circles and diamonds of the latticework, and here
and there the brilliant tints of stained glass sparkled
like jewels in the upper panes, pictured with Scripture
scene, patron saint, or trade emblem. The familiar
porch was reached, the familiar knock resounded on
the iron-studded door. Friedel lifted his mother from

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 239

her horse, and felt that she was quivering from head
to foot, and at the same moment the light streamed
from the open door on the white horse, and the two
young faces, one eager, the other with knit brows and
uneasy eyes. A kind of echo pervaded the house,
" She is come ! she is come ! " and as one in a dream
Christina entered, crossed the well-known hall, looked
up to her uncle and aunt on the stairs, perceived little
change on their countenances, and sank upon her
knees, with bowed head and clasped hands.

" My child ! my dear child ! " exclaimed her uncle,
raising her with one hand, and crossing her brow in
benediction with the other. "Art thou indeed re-
turned ? " and he embraced her tenderly.

" Welcome, fair niece ! " said Hausfrau Johanna,
more formally. " I am right glad to greet you here."

" Dear, clear mother ! " cried Christina, courting
her fond embrace by gestures of the most eager
affection, " how have I longed for this moment, and,
above all, to show you my boys ! Herr Uncle, let
me present my sons — my Eberhard, my Friedmund.
0 Housemother, are not my twins well-grown lads ? "
And she stood with a hand on each, proud that their
heads were so far above her own, and looking still so
slight and girlish in figure that she might better have

240 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

been their sister than their mother. The cloud that
the sudden light had revealed on Ebbo's brow had
cleared away, and he made an inclination neither
awkward nor ungracious in its free mountain dignity
and grace, but not devoid of mountain rusticity and
shy pride, and far less cordial than was Friedel's
manner. Both were infinitely relieved to detect
nothing of the greasy burgher, and were greatly
struck with the fine venerable head before them;
indeed, Erieclel would, like his mother, have knelt
to ask a blessing, had he not been under command
not to outrun his brother's advances towards her
kindred.

" Welcome, fair Junkern ! " said Master Gottfried ;
" welcome both for your mother's sake and your own !
These thy sons, my little one ? " he added, smiling.
" Art sure I neither dream nor see double ! Come to
the gallery, and let me see thee better."

And, ceremoniously giving his hand, he proceeded
to lead his niece up the stairs, while Ebbo, labouring
under ignorance of city forms and uncertainty of
what befitted his dignity, presented his hand to his
aunt with an air that half-amused, half-offended the
shrewd dame.

" All is as if I had left you but yesterday ! " ex-

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 241

claimed Christina. " Uncle, nave you pardoned me ?
You bade me return when my work was done."

" I should have known better, child. Such return
is not to be sought on this side the grave. Thy work
has been more than I then thought of."

" Ah ! and now will you deem it begun — not
done ! " softly said Christina, though with too much
heartfelt exultation greatly to doubt that all the
world must be satisfied with two such boys, if only
Ebbo would be his true self.

The luxury of the house, the wainscoted and
tapestried walls, the polished furniture, the lamps
and candles, the damask linen, the rich array of
silver, pewter, and brightly-coloured glass, were a
great contrast to the bare walls and scant necessaries
of Schloss Adlerstein ; but Ebbo was resolved not to
expose himself by admiration, and did his best to
stifle Friedel's exclamations of surprise and delight.
Were not these citizens to suppose that everything
was tenfold more costly at the baronial castle ? And
truly the boy deserved credit for the consideration
for his mother, which made him merely reserved,
while he felt like a wild eagle in a poultry-yard. It
was no small proof of his affection to forbear more
interference with his mother's happiness than was

VOL. I. R

242 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

the inevitable effect of that intuition which made her
aware that he was chafing and ill at ease. For his
sake, she allowed herself to be placed in the seat of
honour, though she longed, as of old, to nestle at her
uncle's feet, and be again his child ; but, even while
she felt each acceptance of a token of respect as
almost an injury to them, every look and tone was
showing how much the same Christina she had
returned.

In truth, though her life had been mournful and
oppressed, it had not been such as to age her early.
It had been all submission, without wear-and-tear
of mind, and too simple in its trials for care and
moiling; so the fresh, lily-like sweetness of her
maiden bloom was almost intact, and, much as she
had undergone, her once frail health had been so
braced by the mountain breezes, that, though deli-
cacy remained, sickliness was gone from her appear-
ance. There was still the exquisite purity and tender
modesty of expression, but with greater sweetness in
the pensive brown eyes.

" Ah, little one ! " said her uncle, after duly con-
templating her ; " the change is all for the better !
Thou art grown a wondrously fair dame. There will
scarce be a lovelier in the Kaisarly train."

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 243

Ebbo almost pardoned his great-uncle for being
his great-uncle.

" When she is arrayed as becomes the Frau Frei-
herrinn," said the housewife aunt, looking with con-
cern at the coarse texture of her black sleeve. * I
long to see our own lady ruffle it in her new gear.
I am glad that the lofty pointed cap has passed out ;
the coif becomes my child far better, and I see our
tastes still accord as to fashion."

" Fashion scarce came above the Debateable Ford,"
said Christina, smiling. " I fear my boys look as if
they came out of the ' Weltgeschichte,' for I could
only shape their garments after my remembrance of
the gallants of eighteen years ago."

" Their garments are your own shaping ? " ex-
claimed the aunt, now in an accent of real, not
conventional respect.

" Spinning and weaving, shaping and sewing," said
Friedel, coming near to let the housewife examine
the texture.

" Close woven, even threaded, smooth tinted ! Ah,

Stina, thou didst learn something ! Thou wert not

quite spoilt by the housefather's books and carvings."

" I cannot tell whose teachings have served me

best, or been the most precious to me," said Chris-

R2

244 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

tina, with clasped hands, looking from one to another
with earnest love.

" Thou art a good child. Ah ! little one, forgive
me ; you look so like our child that I cannot bear in
mind that you are the Frau Freiherrinn."

" Nay, I should deem myself in disgrace with you,
did you keep me at a distance, and not thou me, as
your little Stina," she fondly answered, half regretting
her fond eager movement, as Ebbo seemed to shrink
together with a gesture perceived by her uncle.

" It is my young lord there who would not for-
give the freedom," he said, good-humouredly, though
gravely.

" Not so," Ebbo forced himself to say ; " not so, if
it makes my mother happy."

He held up his head rather as if he thought it a
fool's paradise, but Master Gottfried answered : " The
noble Freiherr is, from all I have heard, too good
a son to grudge his mother's duteous love even to
burgher kindred."

There was something in the old man's frank dig-
nified tone of grave reproof that at once impressed
Ebbo with a sense of the true superiority of that wise
and venerable old age to his own petulant baronial
self-assertion. He had both head and heart to feel

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 245

the burgher's victory, and with a deep blush, though
not without dignity, he answered, " Truly, sir, my
mother has ever taught us to look up to you as her
kindest and best "

He was going to say " friend," but a look into the
grand benignity of the countenance completed the
conquest, and he turned it into " father." Friedel at
the same instant bent his knee, exclaiming, "It is
true what Ebbo says ! We have both longed for the
day. Bless us, honoured uncle, as you have blessed
my mother."

For in truth there was in the soul of the boy, who
had never had any but women to look up to, a strange
yearning towards reverence, which was called into
action with inexpressible force by the very aspect and
tone of such a sage elder and counsellor as Master
Gottfried Sorel, and took advantage of the first open-
ing permitted by his brother. And the sympathy
always so strong between the two quickened the like
feeling in Ebbo, so that the same movement drew
him on his knee beside Friedel in oblivion or renun-
ciation of all lordly pride towards a kinsman such as
he had here encountered.

" Truly and heartily, my fair youths," said Master
Gottfried, with the same kind dignity, " do I pray

246 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

the good God to bless you, and render you faithful
and loving sons, not only to your mother, but to your
fatherland."

He was unable to distinguish between the two
exactly similar forms that knelt before him, yet there
was something in the quivering of Friedei's head,
which made him press it with a shade more of ten-
derness than the other. And in truth tears were
welling into the eyes veiled by the fingers that Friedel
clasped over his face, for such a blessing was strange
and sweet to him.

Their mother was ready to weep for joy. There
was now no drawback to her bliss, since her son and
her uncle had accepted one another; and she re-
paired to her own beloved old chamber a happier
being than she had been since she had left its wain-
scoted walls. Nay, as she gazed out at the familiar
outlines of roof and tower, and felt herself truly at
home, then knelt by the little undisturbed altar of
her devotions, with the cross above and her own
patron saint below in carved wood, and the flowers
which the good aunt had ever kept as a freshly-
renewed offering, she felt that she was happier, more
fully thankful and blissful than even in the girlish
calm of her untroubled life. Her prayer that she

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 247

might come again in peace had been more than ful-
filled ; nay, when she had seen her boys kneel meekly
to receive her uncle's blessing, it was in some sort to
her as if the work was done, as if the millstone had
been borne up for her, and had borne her and her
dear ones with it.

But there was much to come. She knew full well
that, even though her son's first step had been in the
right direction, it was in a path beset with difficul-
ties ; and how would her proud Ebbo meet them ?

248 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE EAGLETS IN THE CITY.

After having once accepted Master Gottfried, Ebbo
froze towards him and Dame Johanna no more, save
that a naturally imperious temper now and then led
to fitful stiffnesses and momentary haughtiness, which
were easily excused in one so new to the world and
afraid of compromising his rank. In general he
could afford to enjoy himself with a zest as hearty
as that of the simpler-minded Eriedel.

They were early afoot, but not before the heads of
the household were coming forth for the morning
devotions at the cathedral ; and the streets were
stirring into activity, and becoming so peopled that
the boys supposed that it was a great fair day.
They had never seen so many people together even
at the Friedmund Wake, and it was several days
before they ceased to exclaim at every passenger as
a new curiosity.

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 249

The Dome Kirk awed and hushed them. They
had looked to it so long that perhaps no sublunary
thing could have realized their expectations, and
Friedel avowed that he did not know what he
thought of it. It was not such as he had dreamt,
and, like a German as he was, he added that he
could not think, he could only feel, that there was
something ineffable in it ; yet he was almost dis-
appointed to find his visions unfulfilled, and the
hues of the painted glass less pure and translucent
than those of the ice crystals on the mountains.
However, after his eye had become trained, the deep
influence of its dim solemn majesty, and of the
echoes of its organ tones and chants of high praise
or earnest prayer, began to enchain his spirit ; and, if
ever he were missing, he was sure to be found among
the mysteries of the cathedral aisles, generally with
Ebbo, who felt the spell of the same grave fascina-
tion, since whatever was true of the one brother was
generally true of the other. They were essentially
alike, though some phases of character and taste were
more developed in the one or the other.

Master Gottfried was much edified by their perfect
knowledge of the names and numbers of his books.
They instantly, almost resentfully, missed the Cicero's

250 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

Offices that he had parted with, and joyfully hailed
his new acquisitions, often sitting with heads together
over the same book, reading like active-minded
youths who were used to out-of-door life and exercise
in superabundant measure, and to study as a valued
recreation, with only food enough for the intellect to
awaken instead of satisfying it.

They were delighted to obtain instruction from a
travelling student, then attending the schools of
Ulm — a meek timid lad who, for love of learning
and desire of the priesthood, had endured fright-
ful tyranny from the Bacchanten or elder scholars,
and, having at length attained that rank, had so
little heart to retaliate on the juniors that his con-
temporaries despised him, and led him a cruel life,
until he obtained food and shelter from Master Gott-
fried at the pleasant cost of lessons to the young-
barons. Poor Bastien ! this land of quiet, civility,
and books was a foretaste of Paradise to him after
the hard living, barbarity, and coarse vices of his
comrades, of whom he now and then disclosed traits
that made his present pupils long to give battle to
the big shaggy youths who used to send out the lesser
lads to beg and steal for them, and cruelly maltreated
such as failed in the quest.

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE* S XEST. 251

Lessons in music and singing were gladly accepted
by both lads, and from their uncle's carving they
could not keep their hands. Ebbo had begun by
enjoining Friedel to remember that the work that
had been sport in the mountains would be basely
mechanical in the city, and Friedel as usual yielded
his private tastes ; but on the second day Ebbo him-
self was discovered in the workshop, watching the
magic touch of the deft workman, and he was soon
so enticed by the perfect appliances as to take tool
in hand and prove himself not unadroit in the craft.
Friedel, however, excelled in delicacy of touch and
grace and originality of conception, and produced
such workmanship that Master Gottfried could not
help stroking his hair and telling him it was a pity
he was not born to belong to the guild.

" I cannot spare him, sir," cried Ebbo ; " priest,
scholar, minstrel, artist — all want him."

• What, Hans of all streets, Ebbo ? " interrupted
Friedel.

" And guildmaster of none," said Ebbo, " save as a
warrior ; the rest only enough for a gentleman ! For
what I am thou must be ! "

But Ebbo did not find fault with the skill Friedel
was bestowing on his work — a carving in wood of a

252 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

dove brooding over two young eagles — the device
that both were resolved to assume. When their
mother asked what their lady-loves would say to
this, Ebbo looked up, and with the fullest conviction
in his lustrous eyes declared that no love should ever
rival his motherling in his heart. For truly her
tender sweetness had given her sons' affection a
touch of romance, for which Master Gottfried liked
them the better, though his wife thought their fami-
liarity with her hardly accordant with the patriarchal
discipline of the citizens.

The youths held aloof from these burghers, for
Master Gottfried wisely desired to give them time to
be tamed before running risk of offence, either to, or
by, their wild shy pride ; and their mother contrived
to time her meetings with her old companions when
her sons were otherwise occupied. Master Gott-
fried made it known that the marriage portion he
had designed for his niece had been intrusted to a
merchant trading in peltry to Muscovy, and the sum
thus realized was larger than any bride had yet
brought to Adlerstein. Master Gottfried would have
liked to continue the same profitable speculations
with it ; but this would have been beyond the young
Baron's endurance, and his eyes sparkled when his

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 253

mother spoke of repairing the castle, refitting the
chapel, having a resident chaplain, cultivating more
land, increasing the scanty stock of cattle, and
attempting the improvements hitherto prevented by
lack of means. He fervently declared that the
motherling was more than equal to the wise spin-
ning Queen Bertha of legend and lay ; and the first
pleasant sense of wealth came in the acquisition of
horses, weapons, and braveries. In his original mood,
Ebbo would rather have stood before the Diet in his
home-STJun blue than have figured in cloth of gold
at a burgher's expense ; but he had learned to love
his uncle, he regarded the marriage portion as family
property, and, moreover, he sorely longed to feel him-
self and his brother well mounted, and scarcely less
to see his mother in a velvet gown.

Here was his chief point of sympathy with the
housemother, who, herself precluded from wearing
miniver, velvet, or pearls, longed to deck her niece
therewith, in time to receive Sir Kasimir of Adlersteiu
Wildschloss, as he had promised to meet his godsons
at Ulm. The knight's marriage had lasted only a
few years, and had left him no surviving children
except one little daughter, whom he had placed in a
nunnery at Ulm, under the care of her mother's

254 THE DOVE 1ST THE EAGLE'S NEST.

sister. His lands lay higher up the Danube, and he
was expected at Ulm shortly before the Emperor's
arrival. He had been chiefly in Flanders with the
King of the Romans, and had- only returned to
Germany when the Netherlander had refused the
regency of Maximilian, and driven him out of their
country, depriving him of the custody of his chil-
dren.

Pfingsttag, or Pentecost-day, was the occasion of
Christina's first full toilette, and never was bride
more solicitously or exultingly arrayed than she,
while one boy held the mirror and the other criticised
and admired as the aunt adjusted the pearl-bordered
coif, and long white veil floating over the long-desired
black velvet dress. How the two lads admired and
gazed, caring far less for their own new and noble
attire ! Friedel was indeed somewhat concerned that
the sword by his side was so much handsomer than
that which Ebbo wore, and which, for all its dinted
scabbard and battered hilt, he was resolved never to
discard.

It was a festival of brilliant joy. Wreaths of
flowers hung from the windows ; rich tapestries
decked the Dome Kirk, and the relics were displayed
in shrines of wonderful costliness of material and

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 255

beauty of workmanship ; little birds, with thin cakes
fastened to their feet, were let loose to fly about the
church, in strange allusion to the event of the day ;
the clergy wore their most gorgeous robes ; and the
exulting music of the mass echoed from the vaults
of the long-drawn aisles, and brought a rapt look of
deep calm ecstasy over Friedel's sensitive features.
The beggars evidently considered a festival as a
harvest-day, and crowded round the doors of the
cathedral. As the Lady of Adlerstein came out,
leaning on Ebbo's arm, with Friedel on her other
side, they evidently attracted the notice of a woman
whose thin brown face looked the darker for the
striped red and yellow silk kerchief that bound the
dark locks round her brow, as, holding out a beringed
hand, she fastened her glittering jet black eyes on
them, and exclaimed, " Alms ! if the fair dame and
knightly Junkern would hear what fate has in store
for them."

" We meddle not with the future, I thank thee,"
said Christina, seeing that her sons, to whom gipsies
were an amazing novelty, were in extreme surprise
at the fortune-telling proposal.

" Yet could I tell much, lady," said the woman,
still standing in the way. " What would some here

256 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

present give to know that the locks that were
shrouded by the widow's veil ere ever they wore
the matron's coif shall yet return to the coif once
more?"

Ebbo gave a sudden start of dismay and passion ;
his mother held him fast. " Push on, Ebbo mine ;
heed her not ; she is a mere Bohemian."

" But how knew she your history, mother ? " asked
Eriedel, eagerly.

" That might be easily learnt at our wake," began
Christina ; but her steps were checked by a call
from Master Gottfried just behind. " Frau Ereiher-
rinn, Junkern, not so fast. Here is your noble
kinsman."

A tall, fine-looking person, in the long rich robe
worn on peaceful occasions, stood forth, doffing his
eagle-plumed bonnet, and, as the lady turned and
curtsied low, he put his knee to the ground and
kissed her hand, saying, " Well met, noble dame ; I
felt certain that I knew you when I beheld you in
the Dom."

" He was gazing at her all the time," whispered
Ebbo to his brother; while their mother, blushing,
replied, " You do me too much honour, Herr Erei-
herr."

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 257

" Once seen, never to be forgotten," was the cour-
teous answer ; " and truly, but for the stately height
of these my godsons, I would not believe how long
since our meeting was."

Thereupon, in true German fashion, Sir Kasimir
embraced each youth in the open street, and then,
removing his long embroidered Spanish glove, he
offered his hand, or rather the tips of his fingers, to
lead the Frau Christina home.

Master Sorel had invited him to become his guest
at a very elaborate ornamental festival meal in honour
of the great holiday, at which were to be present
several wealthy citizens with their wives and families,
old connexions of the Sorel family. Ebbo had re-
solved upon treating them with courteous reserve
and distance ; but he was surprised to find his cousin
of "Wildschloss comporting himself among the burgo-
masters and their dames as freely as though they
had been his equals, and to see that they took such
demeanour as perfectly natural. Quick to perceive,
the boy gathered that the gulf between noble and
burgher was so great that no intimacy could bridge
it over, no reserve widen it, and that his own bashful
hauteur was almost a sign that he knew that the gulf
had been passed by his own parents ; but shame and

VOL. i. s

258 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

consciousness did not enable him to alter his manner
but rather added to its stiffness.

" The Junker is like an Englishman," said Sir
Kasimir, who had met many of the exiles of the
Koses at the court of Mary of Burgundy; and
then he turned to discuss with the guildmasters
the interruption to trade caused by Flemish
jealousies.

After the lengthy meal, the tables were removed,
the long gallery was occupied by musicians, and
Master Gottfried crossed the hall to tell his eldest
grandnephew that to liim he should depute the
opening of the dance with the handsome bride of the
Eathsherr, Ulrich Burger. Ebbo blushed up to the
eyes, and muttered that he prayed his uncle to
excuse Mm.

" So ! " said the old citizen, really displeased ; " thy
kinsman might have proved to thee that it is no
derogation of thy lordly dignity. I have been patient

with thee, but thy pride passes "

" Sir," interposed Eriedel hastily, raising his sweet
candid face with a look between shame and merri-
ment, " it is not that ; but you forget what poor
mountaineers we are. Never did we tread a measure
save now and then with our mother on a winter

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 259

evening, and we know no more than a chamois of
your intricate measures."

Master Gottfried looked perplexed, for these dances
were matters of great punctilio. It was but seven
years since the Lord of Praunstein had defied the
whole city of Frankfort because a damsel of that
place had refused to dance with one of his cousins ;
and, though " Fistright " and letters of challenge had
been made illegal, yet the whole city of Ulm would
have resented the affront put on it by the young lord
of Adlerstein. Happily the Freiherr of Adlerstein
Wildschloss was at hand. " Herr Burgomaster," he
said, " let me commence the dance with your fair
lady niece. By your testimony," he added, smiling
to the youths, " she can tread a measure. And, after
marking us, you may try your success with the
Bathsherrinn."

Christina would gladly have transferred her noble
partner to the Bathsherrinn, but she feared to mortify
her good uncle and aunt further, and consented to
figure alone with Sir Kasimir in one of the majestic,
graceful dances performed by a single couple before
a gazing assembly. So she let him lead her to her
place, and they bowed and bent, swept past one
another, and moved in interlacing lines and curves,
s2

260 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

with a grand slow movement that displayed her
quiet grace and his stately port and courtly air.

" Is it not beautiful to see the motherling ? " said
Friedel to his brother ; " she sails like a white cloud
in a soft wind. And he stands grand as a stag at gaze."

" Like a malapert peacock, say I," returned Ebbo ;
" didst not see, Friedel, how he kept his eyes on her
in church ? My uncle says the Bohemians are mere
deceivers. Depend on it the woman had spied his
insolent looks when she made her ribald prediction."

" See," said Friedel, who had been watching the
steps rather than attending, " it will be easy to dance
it now. It is a figure my mother once tried to teach
us. I remember it now."

" Then go and do it, since better may not be."

" Nay, but it should be thou."

" Who will know which of us it is ? I hated his
presumption too much to mark his antics."

Friedel came forward, and the substitution was
undetected by all save their mother and uncle ; by
the latter only because, addressing Ebbo, he received
a reply in a tone such as Friedel never used.

Natural grace, quickness of ear and eye, and a
skilful partner, rendered Friedel' s so fair a perform-
ance that he ventured on sending his brother to

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 261

attend the councilloress with wine and comfits ;
while he in his own person performed another dance
with the city dame next in pretension, and their
mother was amnsed by Sir Kasimir's remark, that
her second son danced better that the elder, but both
must learn.

The remark displeased Ebbo. In his isolated
castle he knew no superior, and his nature might
yield willingly, but rebelled at being put down. His
brother was his perfect equal in all mental and bodily
attributes, but it was the absence of all self-assertion
that made Ebbo so often give him the preference ; it
was his mother's tender meekness in which lay her
power with him ; and, if he yielded to Gottfried
Sorel's wisdom and experience, it was with the in-
ward consciousness of voluntary deference to one of
lower rank. But here was 'Wildschloss, of the same
noble blood with himself, his elder, his sponsor, his
protector, with every right to direct him, so that there
was no choice between grateful docility and head-
strong folly. If the fellow had been old, weak, or in
any way inferior, it would have been more bearable ;
but he was a tried warrior, a sage counsellor, in the
prime vigour of manhood, and with a kindly reason-
able authority to which only a fool could fail to

262 THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST.

attend, and which for that very reason chafed Ebbo
excessively.

Moreover, there was the gipsy prophecy ever rank-
ling in the lad's heart, and embittering to him the
sight of every civility from his kinsman to his mother.
Sir Kasimir lodged at a neighbouring hostel ; but he
spent much time with his cousins, and tried to make
them friends with his squire, Count Eudiger. A
great offence to Ebbo was, however, the criticisms of
both knight and squire on the bearing of the young
Barons in military exercises. Truly, with no in-
structor but the rough lanzknecht Heinz, they must,
as Eriedel said, have been born paladins to have
equalled youths whose life had been spent in chival-
rous training.

" See us in a downright fight," said Ebbo ; " we
could strike as hard as any courtly minion."

" As hard, but scarce as dextrously," said Eriedel,
" and be called for our pains the wild mountaineers.
I heard the men-at-arms saying I sat my horse as
though it were always going up or down a precipice ;
and Master Schmidt went into his shop the other day
shrugging his shoulders, and saying we hailed one
another across the market-place as if we thought
Ulm was a mountain full of gemsbocks."

TEE DOVE IN THE EAGLE S NEST. 263

" Thou heardst ! and didst not cast his insolence in
his teeth ? " cried Ebbo.

" How could I," laughed Friedel, " when the echo
was casting back in my teeth my own shout to thee ?
I could only laugh with Paidiger."

" The chief delight I could have, next to getting
home, would be to lay that fellow Paidiger on his
back in the tilt-yard/' said Ebbo.

But, as Eudiger was by four years his senior, and
very expert, the upshot of these encounters was quite
otherwise, and the young gentlemen were disabused
of the notion that fighting came by nature, and found
that, if they desired success in a serious conflict, they
must practise diligently in the city tilt-yard, where
young men were trained to arms. The crossbow was
the only weapon with which they excelled ; and, as
shooting was a favourite exercise with the burghers,
their proficiency was not as exclusive as had seemed
to Ebbo a baronial privilege. Harquebuses were
novelties to them, and they despised them as burgher
weapons, in spite of Sir Kasimir's assurance that
firearms were a great subject of study and interest to
the King of the Piomans. The name of this per-
sonage was, it may be feared, highly distasteful to
the Freiherr von Adlerstein, both as Wildschloss's

264 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

model of knightly perfection, and as one who claimed
submission from his haughty spirit. "When Sir
Kasimir spoke to him on the subject of giving his
allegiance, he stiffly replied, " Sir, that is a question
for ripe consideration."

"It is the question," said Wildschloss, rather
more lightly than agreed with the Baron's dignity,
" whether you like to have your castle pulled down
about your ears."

" That has never happened yet to Adlerstein ! "
said Ebbo, proudly.

" No, because since the days of the Hohenstaufen
there has been neither rule nor union in the empire.
But times are changing fast, my Junker, and within
the last ten years forty castles such as yours have
been consumed by the Swabian League, as though
they were so many walnuts."

" The shell of Adlerstein was too hard for them,
though. They never tried."

" And wherefore, friend Eberhard ? It was because
I represented to the Kaisar and the Graf von Wurtern-
berg that little profit and no glory would accrue from
attacking a crag full of women and babes, and that I,
having the honour to be your next heir, should
prefer having the castle untouched, and under the

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 265

peace of the empire, so long as that peace was kept.
When you should come to years of discretion, then
it would be for you to carry out the intention where-
with your father and grandfather left home."

" Then we have been protected by the peace of
the empire all this time ? " said Friedel, while Ebbo
looked as if the notion were hard of digestion.

" Even so ; and, had you not freely and nobly re-
leased your Genoese merchant, it had gone hard with
Adlerstein."

" Could Adlerstein be taken ? " demanded Ebbo
triumphantly.

* Your grandmother thought not," said Sir Kasimir,
with a shade of irony in his tone. " It would be a
troublesome siege ; but the League numbers 1,500
horse, and 9,000 foot, and, with Schlangenwald's con-
currence, you would be assuredly starved out."

Ebbo was so much the more stimulated to take his
chance, and do nothing on compulsion ; but Friedel
put in the question to what the oaths would bind
him.

" Only to aid the Emperor with sword and counsel
in field or Diet, and thereby win fame and honour
such as can scarce be gained by carrying prey to yon
eagle roost."

266 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

" One may preserve one's independence without
robbery," said Ebbo, coldly.

" Nay, lad ; did you ever hear of a wolf that could
live without marauding ? or if he tried, would he
get credit for so doing ? "

"After all/' said Erieclel, "does not the present
agreement hold till we are of age ? I suppose the
Swabian League would attempt nothing against
minors, unless we break the peace ? "

" Probably not ; I will do my utmost to give the
Freiherr there time to grow beyond his grandmother's
maxims," said Wildschloss. "If Schlangenwald do
not meddle in the matter, he may have the next five
years to decide whether Adlerstein can hold out
against all Germany."

"Freiherr Kasimir von Adlerstein Wildschloss,"
said Eberhard, turning solemnly on him, " I do you
to wit once for all that threats will not serve with
me. If I submit, it will be because I am convinced
it is right. Otherwise we had rather both be buried
in the ruins of our castle, as its last free lords."

" So ! " said the provoking kinsman ; " such burials
look grim when the time comes, but happily it is not
coming yet ! "

Meantime, as Ebbo said to Eriedel, how much

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S XEST. 267

might happen — a disruption of the empire, a crusade
against the Turks, a war in Italy, some grand means
of making the Diet value the sword of a free baron,
without chaining him down to gratify the greed of
hungry Austria. If only "Wildschloss could be
shaken off! But he only became constantly more
friendly and intrusive, almost paternal. Xo wonder,
when the mother and her uncle made him so welcome,
and were so intolerably grateful for his impertinent
interference, while even Friedel confessed the reason-
ableness of his counsels, as if that were not the very
sting of them.

He even asked leave to bring his little daughter
Thekla from her convent to see the lady of Adlerstein.
She was a pretty, flaxen-haired maiden of five years
old, in a round cap, and long narrow frock, with a
little cross at the neck. She had never seen any one
beyond the walls of the nunnery ; and, when her
father took her from the lay sister's arms, and carried
her to the gallery, where sat Hausfrau Johanna, in
dark green, slashed with cherry colour, Master Gott-
fried, in sober crimson, with gold medal and chain,
Freiherrin Christina, in silver-broidered black, and
the two Junkern stood near in the shining mail in
which they were going to the tilt-yard, she turned

268 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

her head in terror, struggled with her scarce known
father, and shrieked for Sister Gretliel.

"It was all too sheen," she sobbed, in the lay
sister's arms; "she did not want to be in Paradise
yet, among the saints ! 0 ! take her back ! The
two bright, holy Michaels would let her go, for indeed
she had made but one mistake in her Ave."

Vain was the attempt to make her lift her face
from the black serge shoulder where she had hidden
it. Sister Grethel coaxed and scolded, Sir Kasimir
reproved, the housemother offered comfits, and Chris-
tina's soft voice was worst of all, for the child,
probably taking her for Our Lady herself, began
to gasp forth a general confession. " I will never do
so again ! Yes, it was a fib, but Mother Hildegard

gave me a bit of marchpane not to tell " Here

the lay sister took strong measures for closing the
little mouth, and Christina drew back, recommending
that the child should be left gradually to discover
their terrestrial nature. Ebbo had looked on with
extreme disgust, trying to hurry Friedel, who had
delayed to trace some lines for his mother on her
broidery pattern. In passing the step where Grethel
sat with Thekla on her lap, the clank of their armour
caused the uplifting of the little flaxen head, and two

THE DOVE IX THE EAGLE'S NEST. 269

wide blue eyes looked over Grethel's shoulder, and
met Friedel's sunny glance. He smiled ; she laughed
back again. He held out his arms, and, though his
hands were gauntleted, she let him lift her up, and
curiously smoothed and patted his cheek, as if he
had been a strange animal.

" You have no wings," she said. " Are you St.
George, or St. Michael % "

" Neither the one nor the other, pretty one. Only
your poor cousin Friedel von Adlerstein, and here is
Ebbo, my brother."

It was not in Ebbo's nature not to smile encourage-
ment at the fair little face, with its wistful look. He
drew off his glove to caress her silken hair, and for a
few minutes she was played with by the two brothers
like a newly-invented toy, receiving their attentions
with pretty half-frightened graciousness, until Count
Rudiger hastened in to summon them, and Friedel
placed her on his mother's knee, where she speedily
became perfectly happy, and at ease.

Her extreme delight, when towards evening the
Junkern returned, was flattering even to Ebbo ; and,
when it was time for her to be taken home, she made
strong resistance, clinging fast to Christina, with
screams and struggles. To the lady's promise of

270 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.

coming to see her she replied, "Friedel and Ebbo,
too/' and, receiving no response to this request, she
burst out, " Then I won't come ! I am the Freiher-
rinn Thekla, the heiress of Adlerstein Wildschloss
and Felsenbach. I won't be a nun. I'll be married !
You shall be my husband," and she made a dart at
the nearest youth, who happened to be Ebbo.

" Ay, ay, you shall have him. He will come for
you, sweetest Fraulein," said the perplexed Grethel,
" so only you will come home ! Nobody will come
for you if you are naughty."

" Will you come if I am good ? " said the spoilt
cloister pet, clinging tight to Ebbo.

"Yes," said her father, as she still resisted, " come
back, my child, and one day shall you see Ebbo, and
have him for a brother."

Thereat Ebbo shook off the little grasping fingers,
almost as if they had belonged to a noxious insect.

"The matron's coif should succeed the widow's
veil." He might talk with scholarly contempt of the
new race of Bohemian imposters ; but there was no
forgetting that sentence. And in like manner, though
his grandmother's allegation that his mother had been
bent on captivating Sir Kasimir in that single inter-
view at Adlerstein, had always seemed to him the

THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. 271

most preposterous of all Kunigunde's forms of out-
rage, the recollection would recur to him; and he
could have found it in his heart to wish that his
mother had never heard of the old lady's designs as
to the oubliette. He did most sincerely wish Master
Gottfried had never let Wildschloss know of the
mode in which his life had been saved. Yet, while
it would have seemed to him profane to breathe even
to Friedel the true secret of his repugnance to this
meddlesome kinsman, it was absolutely impossible to
avoid his most distasteful authority and patronage.

And the mother herself was gently, thankfully
happy and unsuspicious, basking in the tender home
affection of which she had so long been deprived,
proud of her sons, and, though anxious as to Ebbo's
decision, with a quiet trust in his foundation of
principle, and above all trusting to prayer.

END OF VOL. I.

LONDON :

R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,

BREAD STREET HILL.

31&2lH